Make Up Clutch and Mini-Sew-Day

As if I needed another reason to love Friday today, my email this morning had the topic line "you won.." and of course I jumped to open it.

Rafflecopter picked me, Lucky #13 at One Little Minute to win a 2 half-yard bundle of flea market fancy from her sponsor Raspberry Creek Fabric.   I came across Miranda's blog via Swim, Bike, Quilt! and the 100 Quilts for Kids Blog Hop earlier this week and thoroughly enjoyed her post. She tells a wonderful story about discovering the world of quilting as an apparel sewist and the steps leading up to making the Double Dog Dare Quilt.  Don't you love that name?  I totally need to use that tactic with myself.  Read about it here.

More Blog Hopping and Give-Aways

I came across this fun Hop with 144 participants and am trying not to get myself too distracted... but...they don't call it hopping for nothing. One click leads to another click!

Make-Up Clutch Prototype

With the left over pieces from Chevron Cat for Kitty, I made this make-up clutch to test out proportion and procedure before teaching my son's girlfriend how to make one for herself and a friend.  You may recall her runner and tote, two totally successful sewing projects.

I washed up a small chunk of Essex Linen which turned into a wrinkled wad - mental note not repeat that! If you have any pre-washing tips on that subject I'd love to hear.

I wanted the fold over to be large enough so that small items wouldn't have a chance to fall out...

...which made for a deeper than ideal reach to the bottom for those small items...

The wider style hair band with a snug button worked out well.

The end result was pretty cute with the mock chevron from striped fabric and will be a nice little gift.  A few lessons learned which is the reason for a prototype anyway - we added a pocket inside of hers so the little things had a better place to be!  She also got to play around with swirly organic quilting with contrasting Aurifil on the linen and had fun.  sorry no pictures, it was late - but trust me it turned out super cute!

 Mini-Sew-Day

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending some much needed Girl Time sewing with friends.  More of a Sew-Night than Day since I didn't get home until 10:30pm. We all had our plans and projects and although not all that much sewing was accomplished, we ate, chatted and had a great time.

I was able to pin my strips for Not Your Granny Bee in charcoal and cut the strips for F+F=AMSB herringbone blocks for September.

Hope you all have a fun holiday weekend planned.  I have family in from out of town and just might play tourist and attend the Capitola's 60th Begonia Festival.