Pie's Purse

Our daughter is turning four soon and may or may not be coming into more Lalaloopsys.  Her current storage system is a rubbermaid-esque tub that she can't actually open by herself.  Consequently, it's pretty much open all the time and clothes and shoes are all over the place.  Her tub isn't very big.  It was her brothers old hexbug tub before he outgrew it.  She needed/(will soon need) another place to stash her loot and a way to cart it around while holding a doll or two.  I had a bunch of HSTs left over from the zig zags and so she and I spent naptime making a Lalaloopsy purse.

 If you aren't familiar with Lalaloopsy lore, they are "rag dolls who magically came to life the day their last stitch was sewn."  They have button eyes and X belly buttons.  Their mouth is a little running stitch smile.  I've always thought they were cute and was excited when my girl fell in love with them last year.  (thank you toys r us catalog)

here it is with Berry Jars n Jam in her party dress

Anyway, with that style as a guide I tried to add a few stitch details to the bag.  There is big top stitching along the sides and front flap and X stitches where the strap attaches. I used purple floss on the side with the purple zig zag, pink by the pink zig zag, and a tealy light blue along the edge of the flap.

 (only pic I got of the back, terrible lighting I know, the sun was setting...)

The closure is a simple loop.  I thought about other things, but it's for a four year old so I went with this.  I made the big button from some decently sturdy interfacing I had left over from another project.  It's pliable enough that she can smash it as much as she needs to, but sturdy enough that it will bounce back to shape.
She has already put her extra dresses and shoes inside and it works great.  Mission accomplished.

linking up to Fabric Tuesday over at quiltstory

The Dainty Zig Zags

I finished up my zig zag quilt, I really like the way the colors worked together. I used mostly scraps but I did buy a tealy blue that I absolutely love. Seriously, love.

 Did you notice my mother of invention binding?  Oh my goodness.  The back is a teal fleece that complemented the fabrics really well so I thought I might just do a roll over binding, nice and easy.  Except that would shrink the size of the quilt and I really didn't want to do that.  So then I thought I'd use the tealy fabric I love... not enough of it.  So then I settled on the light purple basket weave that is in the zig zag.  As I was laying out my binding, it still wasn't enough.  I found and added another little piece of the purple, but it still didn't look like enough.  So I decided to extend the zig zag on one side.  Of course then it turned out that the purple would have been long enough, but whatever, I liked the zig zag.

 Afterwards, when I was about half way through hand stitching the binding I decided I would love the look of it bound in a solid gray with the gray between the binding zig zags.  If I actually had enough gray fabric I just might have torn it out.  As it is, that beautiful vision will have to wait until I do my chunky zig zag... and buy gray fabric.

 Considering this was my first foray into half square triangles, I think I did pretty good matching up my points and all that; especially considering my triangle "squares" end up at just 1.5" square.  Seriously, dainty.
I debated how to quilt this one.  I wanted to do zig zags, but couldn't decide if they should be equidistant or what.  So I kinda quilted the top half in pairs of lessening width.  I quilted the zig zags themselves right along the outer seam.  All hand quilting of course, I wouldn't even know where to begin to machine quilt.

 I like the crinkliness along the zig zags.  This one turned out nicely.  And it proves I don't just make quirky quilts.  And we're gonna need some proof; I have another nephew on the way and his nursery theme is jungle. And am I doing jungle.  Get ready not to tell.

This baby is headed to my shop. (do you see the fabulous teal? on the front roll between the purple basket weave and the light blue paisley)

(my button wasn't working so just click here

to get back to the other awesomeness of the festival)

Excuse Me?

Yeah.  So can we talk Half Square Triangles for a minute?

This was my first time really using half square triangles.  I even used that check-me-out-I'm-so-smart-and-cool method of piecing, the one where you sew the two squares together twice then cut them apart and voila- two HSTs. What can I say? The festival was calling me.

 Here's essentially the design I was going for.  Nice chunky zig zags,  I was thinking three of them.  I was pretty satisfied with the look, I even started thinking of various homes for this one.  (is it quiltstalking to give someone a quilt for absolutely no reason other than you think it would go with their room?)

 Then I started sewing them together.  Did everyone but me know just how much seam allowances devour HSTs?  My chunky zig zags are turning dainty.  Dainty!  I told my husband the tale of woe and my disappointment.  His response, "don't you do this every time?"  And then I thought, yes, I do always have a moment of antagonism toward my quilts.  So then I got over it.  Hurray for my husband.

I was tagged!

M-R over at QuiltMatters tagged me last week.  So here we go.

1. What is your favourite book?
My favorite book is usually whatever book I'm currently reading.  There are of course the old standards, like Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.  Oh, how much do I love Persuasion?  I could pretty much go on and on about books.  Reading is a constant.  Right now I'm loving A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea. 

We got it at the library and it's just really fun to read out loud.  It's totally my sense of humor.  I recommend it.  I really like Are You a Horse?  too.  Another great kid book.  We read it with an over the top twang in our house.

2. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?
 Just one person!  I would have dinner with my husband.  A date with my husband is always fun.  No policing anyone to make sure they pay enough attention to actually eat their food.

3. When you free motion quilt, do you drop the feed dogs or quilt with them up?
I hand quilt so this doesn't really mean anything to me, but I am intrigued by the idea of dropping them.  What kinds of crazy things do machine quilters do with their machines?  It's like a whole 'nother world.

4. What is your proudest quilting moment?
My proudest quilting moment was signing the scrabble quilt.  It made it official.  I also love hearing/seeing people love the quilt I made.  Most of my quilts are made for specific people I know.  I try to think of them and their style and it's always fun when I get it right.

5. When did you know you were hooked on quilting?
I've pretty much always sewn, my mom taught me when I was seven or something.  I made a t-shirt quilt in middle school and I made my sister a quilt when she graduated from college... I think quilting snuck up on me.  Mostly I just have people I want to make quilts for, and it's an ever growing list so I suppose I am hooked.  Maybe someday I'll get it out of my system but I don't expect so.

6. What is your favourite place in the world? Why?
Disneyland.  I love all the attention to detail.  As a detail person I appreciate the time the imagineers took to designs special trash cans and bathroom flooring.  Nothing jars you to reality.  And of course Disneyland is just fun.  The trash cans are only a bonus.

7. What is a little known fact about you?
Besides the fact that I like Disneyland trash cans?  I can sing the ABCs backwards... does that count?

8. If you were given $1,000 that you could spend on anything for YOU, what would you spend it on -- clothes, shoes, fabric? Something else?
Whenever I spend money on myself it's usually books, caramels and fabric.  I expect if I had to spend it all on me that I would be excessively well read, chubby, and covered in loose threads.

9. What is your favourite quilt that you made?

It's tricky to separate my quilts from who they are for.  I love the quilt I made my daughter because I made it for her and she loves it.  It's just a simple patchwork really.  I love the design of the quilt I made my nephew, it gave me more confidence to just go with it on my crazy ideas.  My favorite is maybe one that I occasionally think of as kinda ugly actually.  As weird as it sounds, I used weird fabrics in part because it was for my sister.  Not that she likes weird fabric but more that I used to wear ugly shirts when I drove her places.  Picture a shirt with a lion cub face over the entire front.  My sister is a very stylish person, I did it to bug her.  Hence the occasional frumpy fabric.

 But again with the details.  I quilted it with embroidery.  I stitched underwater things in the "ocean" and beachy things in the "beach.  It was also my first applique. I made flip flops to match her actual flip flops, I even scraped off some of the "rhinestones."  Maybe someday I'll make her one with all cute fabric that is more her and less obnoxious, but until then, this is still pretty appropriate for graduating from UC San Diego.
I also really like the quilt I made for my Grandma Birdie, and it's not even a little bit ugly.

10. What is your favourite quilt that someone else made?
Fiona over at Finding Fith had a finish recently that I love!  It's a simple log cabin but the colors make it perfect!

11. If you could be any character in a book, which one would it by and why?
Well, I could name you a million characters that I already identify with, but that's not the question.  Actually, I'm good being me.  So I'll just keep with the Elinor Dashwood, Anne Eliott types and work up the nerve to be Hermione.