My birthday, and a winner!

Today is my birthday, and as promised I have drawn the winner of Amber's Family Passport Wallet pattern!!  Our winner is....

...Holly!!  Congratulations!  Holly has traveled to some amazing places, and tells me that she could use this pattern for their upcoming trip to the states.  I can't wait to see what you do with this pattern, Holly.  :)

W.I.P. Wednesday

It's been quite a productive week for me so I figure a proper W.I.P. Wednesday post is in order.  First up, I have had a couple of finishes this week.

This is the "Artist Bag" made using Jeni's drawstring bag pattern, made for my 4 year old nephew to store his budding Lego collection.  It's a nice medium sized bag, perfect for a young child to tote around.  {blogged here}

I had the privilege of testing out Amber's new Family Passport Wallet design, which has now been released in her shop.  I'm also currently hosting a giveaway in which the winner will receive a copy of the pattern.  Click here for more info and to enter the giveaway!

One more small finish for this week ~ a bee block for Marian.

Progress has also been made on my summer hexagon project.  My first batch of hexies was approximately 130ish, which I sewed together into flower units and then into one big blog.  And this week I managed to crank out another 120 hexies which I'm in the process of adding on.  Ahhh, summer.  Lots of time to sit and relax and sew! 

And finally, I'm bringing out my postage stamp top and am going to get it quilted.  It's the only one left on my unfinished pile, asides from the one that Chelsea is quilting for me and the granny squares, which isn't even a finished top yet.  I pressed the postage stamp top today, have the binding made, and am piecing the back tonight.  Next will be basting, my least favourite part, ugh.  But it will be a finish sometime this summer.

Happy week everyone!

Family Passport Wallet ~ and a pattern giveaway!

** This giveaway is now closed.  Thanks to all who entered. **

I had the privilege this week of testing a new sewing design by Amber of One Shabby Chick.  Her family passport wallet caught my eye as soon as I saw it a few weeks ago.  We're a family of 4 so this is perfect for us.  Amber's design also includes a 6-passport version.  When I offered to test the pattern for her and she said YES, I was thrilled!  Here is my version...

I was lucky enough to win a fat eighth bundle of fabrics from i have to say... a little while ago so that's what I used for this project. (one word of caution....be careful if you choose to use directional prints for this project, being sure that everything will end up facing the right way when finished!!)

The wallet easily holds 4 passports, but the pockets have enough "give" that I'm sure you could even slip a few more in there (say, if you were a family of 5), or a few other paper items. 

The design also includes one outside pocket for any other travel documents or whatever you want to tuck in, and it's all held secure by the strap that wraps around the whole wallet and snaps on the front.  (P.S.  Yes, I had to piece my strap fabric as you can see in the above photo, but that is not part of the design - I had to do that because I used fat 1/8's rather than the fat 1/4's called for in the pattern - it was the only way I could use that cool numbers print for my strap!)

Amber has offered to give away a copy of her pattern to one of my readers!  Leave one comment on this post to be entered, and just for fun since we're talking about passports and traveling, please tell me how many countries you have visited!  I am not very well traveled so have only made it to 3 - Canada, US, and Mexico.  :)

In addition to the giveaway, Amber is offering 10% off everything in her shop to celebrate, with the coupon code newpattern.

I'll leave this giveaway post open until July 31 (my birthday!).  Good luck!!

Drawstring Lego tote

You might recall a few months ago I made my first version of Jeni's lined drawstring bag pattern, the "Tiny Bag".

Next came the "Snack Bag", made for my 2 year old niece.  The pattern, combined with Aneela Hoey's 'A Walk in the Woods' fabric, made a super cute little drawstring bag as well.

 

And now, the "Artist Bag", for a Lego artist of course!!  My sister and her family are making a major move this fall and are planning what to bring, and how to bring it, so I said I'd make my nephew a drawstring bag for his Lego.  He's just starting out in the world of Lego, but this bag will give him something to grow into.

I have no idea what any of these fabrics are - I didn't look closely at the selvedges when I picked them out, and then the cuts that I ended up with didn't have the names marked on them.  Oh well!!  As you can see, in the first bag I made I used ribbon for the ties, the second one had fabric ties, and this one has twill tape ties.  I definitely prefer the twill tape and will use it in the future.  Maybe some of this cute stuff one day!

Finished size, approximately 16" high, 10.5" wide, 4.5" deep

Summer hand-work

Can you believe I haven't touched my sewing machine once this month?  Kind of crazy considering the fact that during the fall/winter/spring I usually do at least a little bit of sewing every day.  Summer is like this for me though, I did the same last summer, and I have to say I've been enjoying it!  

I've been sewing my scrappy hexagons into flowers, not that I'm going for that distinct flower look a la grandmother's flower garden.  More that I've done a bit of experimenting and figured out that even though my goal is random placement (like Svetlana's), it makes the most sense to me to stitch them together into flower units before assembling the whole thing.  I still have no actual plan for these but I am in a way excited to leave it as a long-term project, making hexagons whenever I have new scraps, and seeing where it takes me.

I just love seeing these colourful, scrappy, varied hexagons, and I love playing with them by laying them out in different arrangements, stacking them perfectly neatly, etc.  Does that make me weird?  I have a feeling most of you understand!  ;)

I hope you all are having a wonderful week.  Ours has been nice so far, despite this cold that I just can't get rid of, and the fact that oldest son is gone to a week-long camp for the first time (I will admit, I felt a bit verklempt Sunday dropping him off and leaving him there...) - the weather is beautiful, summer is here, and we're having a nice relaxing time.

Take care everyone.

W.I.P. Wednesday

I haven't been up to a whole lot lately, with summer upon us and now a vacation behind us but I do have a little bit to share.

The hexies that I prepared to work on while on vacation have now been completed - ended up being 120 - 1" hexagons, which is only enough to piece together into something about placemat size!  I don't know what my actual intentions are for this project, I really can't see myself doing a whole quilt, but for now it's going into the "ongoing projects" category.

My jumbo granny square blocks are coming along as well, all 3 of them have all setting triangles added since last time I posted.  Sashing still needs to be added between the blocks and then I need to decide on some wide border colours.  Incidentally, it was so windy when I was trying to take a clothesline photo this afternoon and I had to wait quite a while for things to calm down, in the mean time with all the blowing, the edges of the blocks actually frayed a bit.  Ooooops!

Lastly for today, I was one of the fortunate winners of Chelsea's giveaway and she will be long-arm quilting this quilt top for me: 

I still need to make arrangements with her about delivering the top/backing/batting to her, as well as how we decide to quilt it, but I am SO excited!  I've never had a quilt long-armed before.  I'm really looking forward to showing the results sometime in the not too distant future.

Back!

We are just back from a week long family vacation at the beach with my parents and my sister and her family.  We didn't travel far from our home at all, but it still felt very much like "getting away" and it was wonderful. 

I took a heap of 1" hexagons along to work on some english paper piecing while away from my sewing machine, and as I should have expected, I didn't get nearly as many of them done as I thought I might.  That said, when I pulled all the finished ones out today the pile was bigger than I thought it would be.  I have no plans at the moment for these, but it's just fun to baste them together quickly and admire the variety of fabrics.

And finally, for now, I wanted to share the label that I made for the Frankie quilt I finished a while back.  The quilt was intended for my parents, and has now been received by them, so I can finally share!  This was my first time making a quilt label (I know, gasp!) and I'm happy with how it turned out.  I used a piece of Kona Ash, then added one narrow border and wrote on it with a permanent fabric marker.  I then followed this tutorial for fusing it to the back of the quilt, then finished it off with a ladder stitch around to make sure it was secure.  Easy!