The Tote is Finished

I've finished the tote for my niece. I like the colors, I think it's fun. I ended up buying two shorter zippers to close the top. Neither of the near stores had a color match, and I thought about opening from the center before, so I tried it. Kind of fun. The pockets inside and out are all made from the curtain fabric. It's nice and sturdy.

I forgot to put the handles on till the end, so it was a little more difficult, but not horrible. I realized just as I was finishing the last seam on the outside, oops. I think I"m going to make some beaded pulls for the zippers. I have some beads that will match, and it will make it easier to open and close. 

 

Here are the beads and pulls I put on the brown bag. There are two zipper pulls, so I need two decorations. For the purple bag for my other niece, I only have one zipper pull, so one beaded pull.

Here it is.

Another Tote Finished

Here is the simple bag I just finished. I has no separate lining, just fuse two pieces of fabric together to make a heavier fabric. There are pockets on the outside, and the inside. I finished the edges with a wavy stitch so there would be little raveling.

The way the zipper is put in makes it open well.

Here you can see the inside pocets. No zippers, no velcro, just simple pockets to put stuff in. I think I'll make some for gifts!

Coffee Bag Bag

We were in Hawaii last year in March. We visited the Greenwell Coffee Farms (even though we don't drink coffee) to take a tour. They had these unused coffee bags for sale and also some totes already made from the bags. I think the totes were about $15, and the bags were only about $5. Joe really like the totes, so I bought a bag to make one. I finally got around to it today. I made it much more difficult than it had to be. I kept making silly mistakes, so there is a lot of un-sewing going on in this one. I finally finished it (just).

The lining is fabric I bought to make other totes...since there is a bit of green on the coffee bag, I decided to use the green fabric I had. I think it turned out well, and I think Joe will like it.

Quilt Tote

Here is the finished tote. It's pretty big, about 25 inches wide and 22 tall. The bottom is 8 inches wide, so it will be able to hold a large size quilt pretty easily. It was very easy to make though I had to make some adjustments because of the width of fabric I had left after making two shopping totes from the panel.

I lined the inside with the blue fabric, and have a 5/8 inch dowel that I cut in half for the handles. I have to either sew the ends of the casing for the handle closed or use some other kind of less permanent closure because the dowels will fall out every time I put the thing down.

Next...I think it's time to quilt something again.

Paper Piecing...I hate it

Here is a block I made from this project. It was completed sometime before 2003. I don't think I used paper piecing, but I may have. The bits don't even match. Yuck!


There is a project I have all the fabric for...it's set aside with the pattern. I really like the colors, so I thought I would bring it out again and see about working on it. I read a bunch of blogs, one jovaliquilts mentioned a class by Cynthia England and her paper pieceing technique. I looked at the website and viewed a couple of videos on her technique. It looked doable to me, so I decided to try it with the pattern I have waiting to be made. No go. I probably just need to practice so I can do a good job, but the trouble it takes to do paper piecing (for me) is not worth it. The quilts made by Cynthia England are amazing, and many paper piecing quilts I have seen are amazing, but I just don't have the gumption to do it myself...at least not without someone working with me.

Maybe if I took a class I could do it. I've pieced a couple of things through paper and hated taking off the paper afterwards. All those little bits that get caught in the seams. And then I've tried a couple of different freezer paper methods (this last one uses freezer paper) but didn't have much success there either.

So, I'm making some shopping totes instead. Instant gratification! I bought the striped fabric at Walmart. It is actually curtain panels. When I figured out the cost per yard it is only $4 per yard and I REALLY like it. The blue is from my stash...long ago. It is a polyester, so I don't want to use it in a quilt or on a back, but it will be great for lining for the totes. The striped fabric is a twill, a nice weight for shopping totes and together they make me happy.

What's on My Design Wall

I made two more shopping bags from pillowcases and cut out the borders for the blooms and butterflies quilts. I had to figure out if I wanted to use the blue, or the pink I had, so I did some mock ups (actually I tried orange, yellow, green...any color I could pull out of the top. The blue is what does it for me, so that's what I settled on. You can see the color above, and what I used in the mock-up below. I should be able to get the borders on, make a couple more bags this week, and perhaps get something quilted, or at least sandwiched by next Monday.

I have been sewing...I have!

Here is proof...well actually, this isn't sewing is it? Huh, well I will be quilting soon. I'm going to try to get this one quilted before the end of April so I can add it to my Spring finishes.

I made two more pillowcase totes, too.


I do have a reason for not posting. I was working at a conference school put on from Wednesday afternoon till Saturday evening. I'm just not a peppy as I once was, and I was TIRED when I got home, so, no sewing/pinning/planning/quilting got done till Sunday. That's when I made the totes.

On a totally different note, we woke up to 4 more inches of snow this morning, all melted already, but I got some cool pictures before the sun went down. Ahhh, spring in the Rockies!

Here's one I like! Enjoy