Key Keeper Coin Purse: Completed!

First of all, remember you still have until this Friday to enter your June Teardrop Bag! Go link up if you haven't already!

This month we are working on a coin purse with the same overall style as the Teardrop Bag. I chose to make mine from the same material, but you certainly don't have to. I did think about switching the fabrics to make it opposite the Teardrop bag, but in the end stuck with the same overall look.

I was very pleasantly surprised at how quickly this little coin purse came together. I typically don't get any long stretches of time to sit down & sew, so I fully expected this to take me at least a couple sewing sessions over a few days. But since I'm not sleeping well these days, I've been taking an hour or so at night to work on things, and I couldn't believe I got this finished up in just one evening (and less time than it took to watch Cars!). I'm also happy to say I didn't need to look at any instructions for the zipper, since it seems like I've done quite a few lately. Practice certainly hasn't made perfect yet, but it's not hurting anything either!

Once again, I didn't do the zipper the same as it's called for in the pattern. I added my usual zip ends to help get a cleaner looking top, which usually works for me.

(I'm working on another little project right now that involves a zipper so I can take pictures to show you how I add them.)

The pattern calls for a pocket on the inside, but like I mentioned before, I left that out of mine. It just didn't make much sense to me. The opening on this is fairly small & it would really not be much more than a divider, which I didn't see a need for.

Even without the pocket, I still couldn't get my pleat to look as nice as most of your Teardrop Bags. I seem to be somewhat challenged in that department. Because of that, the shape of mine seems a bit awkward, and I'm kind of surprised by the size of it. It's funny, the Teardrop bag ended up smaller than I expected, and this is bigger than I was expecting. Go figure. :)

Overall, I think it's an adorable little coin purse, and one that I'm likely to make again. It would be a cute addition if you're making a purse or bag as a gift to make one of these to match.

Good luck with your own Key Keeper Coin Purse this week! Remember you can ask questions & share your fabric & completed coin purses in the Flickr Group.

Until next time...

The top is done!

YAY! Finally, finally Goose's quilt top is done!

It ended up a great size, about 55"x77". It'll be a little big for Goose right now (well, in August!), but he'll be able to use it longer.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with the back, but I'm leaning towards stripes rather than squares. My problem is the fabric isn't wide enough to cover the full back, so I was thinking about doing a border around the whole thing. But (there's always one of those, isn't there?), I don't think I have enough of the blue dots to make a full border. So now I'm thinking about doing the stripes, but with a stripe of the blue dots splitting it down the middle. I'm still very much in the planning stages with it though.

Here's the order for the stripes on the back, if I go that route. Like I said, the blue dots will on it somehow as well.

I'm definitely happy with how the top turned out, and I can't wait to get it all finished up.

Raven likes it too. :)

Until next time...

July: Key Keeper Coin Purse

It's the beginning of another month & you know what that means - another project in the Style Stitches Sew Along! This month we'll be working on the Key Keeper Coin Purse.

I've already told a few of you this, but I'm accepting no excuses for not participating this month! :) Short of the Reversible Everyday Shopper, I think this may be the easiest pattern in the book so far. And honestly, it went together much, much quicker for me than the Everyday Shopper, so it might be even easier. Do not let the zipper scare you! I was able to get mine finished up (including cutting & fusing!) in less than an hour & a half.

This is a pretty adorable little coin purse that goes perfectly with last month's Teardrop Bag. I even used the same fabric for mine.

I'll share more pictures of my Key Keeper & my full thoughts on the pattern next week. For now though I will tell you one thing, just in case you're thinking about getting started on it this weekend - I don't recommend adding the pocket that is in the pattern, unless you're going to add it to the outside. It won't act as much more than a divider, and personally, I don't think it makes much sense in a coin purse.

This month's giveaway is sponsored by Jill at Envirocraftiness, I'll share more details on that later as well. Jill is another of my very first bloggy friends, so make sure you go check her out!

Remember you still have time to enter your Teardrop Bag, so head over & link up!

I hope all of you in the States have a happy & safe holiday weekend. And of course I hope those of you overseas have a happy & safe weekend as well, but I think you've got better chances of not blowing yourselves up this weekend. ;)

Until next time...

Time to share YOUR Teardrop Bag

It's my favorite time of the month again - time to share your Teardrop Bag!

Each link up below is your entry to win this month's prize from Sharon at A Prairie Sunrise - a custom piece of jewelry & custom sketch book!

I think you already know the drill by now, but hopefully we've got some new people this month! As always, only links entered below will be considered for the giveaway drawing, not links entered as comments. You may enter more than once ONLY if you completed more than one bag, and each bag must be in its own blog post or Flickr photo & have its own link below. Please remember to link to your specific blog post or Flickr photo, not the main page on your blog or your Flickr profile.

Entries will be open through midnight on Friday, July 8. That's right, you've got a full week to finish up your bag if you haven't already & get linked up. Winner will be announced Monday, July 11.

What are you waiting for?! Let's see those Teardrop Bags!

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #20

I'll be short & sweet again this week!

Started: Nothing new.

In Progress: June block for the String Me Along bee. I'm still hoping to do some sort of variation on the circle of geese, but haven't decided yet. I do have pieces cut out for my second practice block, but no work yet on the official block.

Goose's quilt. I forgot to take pictures when I had the rows all laid out, but now I've got two seams left until the top is all put together! I'm getting more & more excited about this, but now I need to decide how I want to do the back. I have this half yard bundle to work with:

My original plan was to do 12" squares on the back of everything except the blue dots, then use the blue dots to make about a 3" border around the whole thing. Last night I was thinking maybe I just want to do wide stripes on the back. I plan to hand quilt it with random circles all over. So which do you think, stripes or squares? Here's the front again, in case you've forgotten:

No progress on the crochet blanket or Christmas gift. Blah.

Completed: Nothing new.

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...

Teardrop Bag: Completed!

I had hoped to share this the end of last week, but Mr. Sun has been less than cooperative for me to be able to get decent pictures. Well, not cooperative on my schedule, at least! The nerve...

First let's have a little reminder of what the Teardrop Bag is supposed to look like, since I went a little in my own direction. Anybody surprised?! :)

I chose to make the small version, and I'll be the first to admit I'm a terrible judge of size when looking at finished dimensions on bags & such. And honestly, I'm not even certain I looked closely at the finished dimension before I got started. I knew what fabric I had on hand that I wanted to use (remember, I'm trying to sew all projects from my stash), and I knew I didn't have enough for the large bag. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with how it turned out, and it's really a perfect size if you want a nice, small bag to throw a few things into & run out the door. But for me, it's definitely not big enough (and doesn't have nearly enough pockets!) to be an everyday purse. Good thing I didn't make it with keeping it in mind.

I mentioned before (and had issues!) that I chose to put the pocket on the outside, rather than inside, of my bag. Because of the size, it would have been more of a divider on the inside than a pocket, so I figured it would be more useful on the outside.

I just used pre-made bias tape to edge the top of the pocket to add a little extra contrast. I toyed around with the idea of doing it like the side pockets on the Cosmo Bag, but in the end stuck with the bias tape.

Because of the width of the pocket piece, I couldn't really figure out how best to do the pleat so that the finished width was the same size as the pocket. I'm still not sure how those of you who did the pleats correctly did it, but I'm okay with how mine turned out. The pleat kind of "opens up" to add more space.

The opening of my bag ended up really small, and there was absolutely no way I was getting it in the machine to add the side hips. It's a cute detail, but thankfully I don't really miss them. I don't think they would have interfered with the exterior pocket, if I remember correctly when I was trying to add them, they cam just to the top edge of the pocket.

Overall, I think the pattern was a good one. I think this size would be perfect if you wanted to make one for a little girl who loves purses, although you'd probably want to adjust the strap length in that case. I didn't get any pictures of myself holding this purse, but it does fall pretty much the same as it shows in the book photo.

And you know I can't go without saying - I still think this bag was easier than the Cosmo. ;)

Until next time...

WIP Wednesday #19

Another week, another Wednesday! Sorry for the lack of progress the past few weeks, hopefully you can understand we've got just a few others things going on. ;)

Hopefully I can keep this all straight. It feels like it's been so long since I've done a real update, and everything is becoming hard to keep track of, so sorting out what I actually did this week seems tough for some reason.

Started: The July project for the Style Stitches Sew along, the Key Keeper Coin Purse. I won't be sharing the completed project until next month, but I used the same fabric as I did for the Teardrop Bag.

I'm excited for cutting instructions for the Kaleidoscope quilt along this week so I can get started on that.

Still thinking about what I want to do for my bag. Would you believe I'm actually considering making another patchwork Mabel?!

I've started brainstorming what I want to make for my June block in the String Me Along bee. N.Ramirez has requested a Flying Geese block, which will be my first. Of course, since I enjoy making things difficult for myself, I decided now would be a good time to try out paper piecing for the first time as well. Might as well jump in with both feet, right?! I found this Circular Geese block & gave it a try with some scrap fabric I have for this sort of thing. Other than not knowing how to count (who knew 8 doesn't come right after 5?!), I'm really happy with how it turned out (yes, I added a border since I was just doing the one block instead of all four), and actually really enjoyed the paper piecing process. I'm not certain I have enough fabric to make the full circle, so I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate one or two of the pieces.

A question to those of you who have done paper piecing before - how do you do it without wasting a bunch of fabric? Because I was working with cheap-o fabric that I really don't care about (I got a "bolt" of 5 yards from Wal-Mart when they were clearancing it out, and it's definitely not quality fabric, so I don't care much about waste. And also, pretty ugly!), I was just lopping off chunks, sewing them into place, then trimming off the excess. Because I want to waste as little as possible (and only have a set amount to work with), I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about it. I did print out another copy of the pattern & cut out the individual pieces & figure I can use those to cut the specific pieces (with a seam allowance, of course), but is that the best way?

In progress: Still plugging away on Goose's quilt. Not really any new progress, but the blocks for the last two rows have been pulled off the mattress "design board," and are waiting to be sewn together. Then I just need to sew the rows together, quilt it, and bind it! It feels like I'm heading into the homestretch on it, but I also have so many other things I want to work on, it keeps getting pushed aside. At this point, I'm feeling like it probably won't get done before Goose gets here, although that's still by goal. Only 8 weeks until he's due, and 10 at the max before he gets here. Yikes!

Crochet blanket - no progress. I'm avoiding it since I know I need to start over on it since I screwed it up. That's what I get for ignoring the pattern & doing things my own way. ;)

The Christmas gift. I hope to have this done by mid-July at the latest. Hopefully.

Completed: I managed to finish up both the Teardrop Bag and the Key Keeper Coin Purse this week! Thankfully the coin purse was super quick & easy - about an hour start to finish - which is exactly the kind of project I needed.

Make sure you head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everybody else has been up to this week.

Until next time...