Time To Play Catch-Up

I have been very busy, thus no new blog entries for several weeks.  However, I think I can do some catching up today.

At the first of the month, I went on a two-day Shop Hop with some friends.  We traveled nearly 700 miles in 2 days.  I did the driving, since I am so sensitive to motion and other people's driving (grin).

Here are some of the quilts we saw along the way:

These first two were probably king-sized.  The half-square triangles were probably 1 1/2 inches finished.  They truly took my breath away.  I was quite inspired by them.  (Sages Creek, Pocatello, ID)

These runners (same store), were beautiful.  I took the pictures for inspiration.

This one came from Porter's in Idaho Falls, ID.

These next were from Madsen's in Idaho Falls.

Then, this one at Abbot's in Rigby.

And the last from Porter's in Rexburg.

Pam made each of us a wristlet to carry our stuff in.  Each shop gave us a charm, and I also carried a little cash and my camera in mine.

These are some of the purchases I made.  I was wearing pink the first day, so everything pink caught my eye.  I was wearing blue the second day, so that's what I enjoyed that day.  The "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH" fabric totally cracked me up!  I happen to sit in meetings where I feel that is all that is going on...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  And I had just told my friends about it 5 minutes before walking in the store and finding this fabric.  We laughed very hard.  So, I am going to make a little bag to put my crocheting in, for when I get bored in these kinds of meetings (grin).

This is the runner sample for our store.  I am going to make one, I hope to do it before the 4th of July.  Isn't it sweet?

While on the shop hop, I found a cute purse pattern that I loved.  However, the cost of the pattern was a little more than I wanted to spend.  So, I took a good look at it and thought I could make it without the pattern.  It had a band at the top, with pleats where it met the band.

When I came home and started looking around for fabric, I noticed a skirt I had purchased at a secondhand store a while back.  I bought it because I loved the fabric and wanted to use it in something.  It had a waistband detail that reminded me of the bag I had seen, but without the pleats.

 The skirt was a size 6, and had a side zipper.  Notice the band at the waist with the ribbon detail.

Because the skirt band had a facing, I only added the lining to match the facing, sewing it on by hand.  I also used bright yellow for the pockets as a contrast to the color of the skirt.  

I removed the zipper, sewed up the side seam, cut off the bottom, added lace below the ribbon, made a handle, lining, pockets and boxed the bottom.  It was a fun process.  And here is the finished product:

It is a fairly big bag, and can hold lots of stuff.  It seems I am usually carrying lots of stuff, so it is a good bag for me.  I was excited to use something I already had, that didn't cost me a lot of money.  The time was fairly minimal, and even though there was more hand-sewing than usual, it seemed to go pretty quickly.

I spent Saturday quilting my spool quilt, and the binding is sewn on, but not sewn down.  That should be done before my next blog entry, and I'll actually have two finished quilts to show.  Until then,

Happy Sewing!