Thursday, February 26, 2015

Quiltcon Related Finishes

I finished a couple of things this week that were either worked on or the materials were purchased during my Quiltcon trip. There are seven zipper pouches, my zigzag sampler, and my fair isle hat.

First up, the zipper pouches. My kids wanted me to bring them back something from my trip. They also have been asking to learn to make zipper pouches for a long time now, we even already had some cool metal zippers on hand. So I picked up these seven Cloud9 fat quarters and we got to work the day after I got home.

It was lucky that the fabrics I grabbed with them in mind went so well with the zippers we had. They look pretty neat all lined up.

Each of them helped make their own pouch, except the baby, she was napping. They pressed, helped cut, and sewed. It was a fun project to share. This was a super basic pouch. We just folded the fat quarter into fourths and then cut around the edges to make four equal rectangles. Then we sewed them to the zipper with two for the outside and two for the lining. Even my husband made one. Best souvenir ever!

While at Quiltcon I took a quilting class. We weren't able to finish our quilt sandwich there but I took mine home and worked on it a bit more. I finished it today. I am so happy with how far I've come just on this little swatch! I'm loving the bubbles and the box maze. I'm also proud of how the lines look. I'm not a fan of the paisley on the bottom but I want to love it.

Once finished I didn't know what to do with this. I didn't want to throw it away and mentioned the dilemma to my kids. They said it would make an awesome doll/animal quilt. I keep all my binding scraps so I threw some on it and called it good.

It's already getting some love from the smallest one.

In other news I made great progress on my fair isle hat but I was to the point where I needed to switch from circulars to double points so I picked some up. When my hubby saw them and pointed out how tiny they were I told him that they come much smaller than this. He said, "what in a hundred pack labeled toothpick?" LOVE! Totally my favorite quote in recent memory.

With the help of my over-sized toothpicks - ta da! I cannot begin to tell you how much I enjoyed each and every part of this project. It is my favorite to date. I find color work to be quite easy for my brain to handle, much easier than the cable hat I'm trying to suffer through.

Even the inside looks pretty! I brought this on the plane to and from Quiltcon and several people mentioned how impressed they were with my skill and how great it looked even on the inside with the tension. I'm so glad I decided to pick up knitting and am loving it!

Here I am sporting my new hat. The color is a little off in this picture but it's fun anyway.
Thanks for stopping by! So those are my finishes for the week. I have a quilt already lined up to test my skills on the real thing and I have a zipper pouch and a few crochet projects to make. I also hope to finish my knit cable hat soon so I can move on to something else. I'm linking up with TGIFF.

5 comments:

  1. Those are a group of happy kids! Those are great gifts, and I love the use for your class sample.

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  2. I love your quilting adventure story and how you included the whole family and your beautiful hat too!

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  3. The pouches are awesome! I love that even the little one got a pouch... And your hubby! :-). I laughed out loud when I read your comment about the paisleys. When I first started stitching paisleys, I didn't like them at all. But the more I practiced, the better looking they became and now, it's a design I go to all the time. As always, you've got lots of really fun stuff going on!

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  4. What a neat idea for souvenirs! And to get everyone involved. Your hat is delicious, too--and so neat inside. I've just spent some time looking back through your quilt history. It's fun to see how your style has evolved over time--wonderful record of your work (play).

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