Lots of little bits!

Some smaller projects I've worked on in over the past couple of months!

Scrap Coasters, based on Japanese fabric, with a touch of hand embroidery.

Japanese fabric flower. It's a good size, would work as a table center, or cushion cover when done.

More scrap coasters. I love this windmill design, one of my favorites right now.

Little sock owls my granddaughter and I made while she was visiting from Kanto.

Bunnies in the garden, felt bunny mobile, so cute!

100-yen shop find of the day! Cracked glass jar and pebbles (candle was mine). It's really pretty on the table at night.

Bitty Shopping Bag

I needed a smallish type quick-grab bag to throw my wallet, cell-phone and ipod into when dashing to the store for milk and eggs. Following AllPeopleQuilt.com's pattern, I came up with this little bag, a perfect size for 2 or 3 necessities and a quick run to the store! I used all Japanese-themed fabrics for the outside, and a more westernish fabric for the lining. I think it took just over an hour from start to finish to make this bag, any future replicas will probably be quicker. It's a great use of scraps!!

Whenever possible, I send Yoshi to the store for me, he usually manages to bring home the eggs!

Triangles Lap Quilt: pattern from The Temecula Quilt Company

The Temecula Quilt Company is a lovely little quilt store in Temecula, California. It focuses on Civil War reproduction fabric, and being near my mother's place, she often visits there. This year's birthday present was a year's subscription to their monthly kit program! I love their fabric, it's so soft, warm, soothing, and can't wait to dig into my most recent kit!

This lap quilt was used with their pattern, but not their fabric, I bought them locally. It took me less than a year to finish this off! Accomplishment for me! And I gave it to my step-daughter for her birthday this year. As you can see, the triangle lines are not the straightest, slightly crooked, but I still think it turned out cozy. I hadn't chosen the orange border fabric when I purchased all the others, but at the end I felt it needed something for color, and the orange was in my stash and seemed just the right amount of richness to set off the rest of the colors. I did the binding with scraps from the quilt itself, one of my favorite types of binding.

What excited me about this quilt, besides cutting out over a hundred triangles, LOL!!... was I tried out my new Quilter's Darning Foot to do free-style quilting at the end. I LOVED it! I can't wait to do more!! I didn't choose a good thread, I wanted to use some beautiful variegated thread I had picked up, but the machine didn't take too kindly to the thread and I had a lot of problems with it snapping, snagging, breaking, and so gave it up and settled on a less pretty thread. Overall though, I had a lot of fun making this quilt!

Some of the quilting with my new foot...

I decided to do a different quilting pattern on every other triangle row.

And a close-up of my mitered corner, they turned out really well!

My step-daughter said she loves it and hopes she can keep her kids from trying to cuddle up under it, since it's really only big enough for one!

Presents for grandchildren

Colorful sailboat pillow cover for my little grandson, just something to brighten up his bed. The fabrics are from Robert Kaufman and came from the Clothesline 2011 Quilt club which my Mom signed me up for. I get a wonderful little kit in the mail every month, makes projects so much easier and fun to do!

Making the cover taught me a new technique for finishing backs of pillow covers, two pieces of cloth that overlap each other to make a closure, really simple!

A small hexagon pouch for my granddaughter. I thought it was a good size for her Ipod Nano (3rd gen) to fit. But am not sure what she used it for.

As you can see, the case is really small! I love those springy metal closures, great for small pouches, or sunglass cases, very handy.

Bitty Flower Table Topper

I started this last summer, using scraps a little pieces of some really pretty cloth. My Mom got me an acrylic template and pattern from a quilt shop in Temecula (when I look up the information, I'll put in the link), so cutting out the pieces was easy. But, I wasn't precise enough on sewing the pieces properly, and ended up with a lopsided circle...oops! I had to fold over a few of the petals to make a proper circle, and from a distance, I think it turned out pretty nice. Don't look too closely though...

The yellow petal was folded over to balance out the circle

I blanket-stitch-appliqued a center over in the middle

And added some hand-stitching as well as laizy-daisy embroidery with beads for effect.

Julia claimed it at some point and asked me to add some green, so the binding uses a Moda spring fabric which I think sets the whole thing off nicely. (Wine bottle is not for Julia!)

A second flower is in the works, all done in Japanese fabrics. Pictures coming soon!

Bento Bags

With three kids needing oBento every day, I set out to make them some cute bags. These are the first attempts, more to come in the future. They turned out just a wee bit too small to include the chopstick cases, but otherwise are really cute!

A tote bag with handles style, including a closing on top to give your lunch some privacy.

The girls want me to try making one with a thermal lining and a pocket for an ice-pack to keep lunch during the summer...that's next on my loooooooong list of projects!


A reversible draw-string style bag that fits nicely into the school bag.

I love making bags, they all turn out so different and are incredibly useful, even the mistakes! And are a good way to use up small bits of fabric.

Little Boy Table Mat

The littlest guy likes to eat breakfast at the coffee table, watching his currently favorite (Pokemon) tv show. Since the table is solid cherry wood and very nice, and since the little guy still spills, I thought a fun table mat would be in perfect order.

I drew the letters for his name free-hand and used fusible webbing to iron them to the fabric, then zig-zagged around the edges to keep them in place.

Added a little tag from some linen ribbon I picked up at a craft shop.

Nintendo Mario was the main theme of the fabric, but I decided to add some balance with this really cute purple fabric printed with Japanese rabbits, I love this cloth, I have to find some more, it fits into so many projects!

And finally, I drew some stars in the middle and machine-quilted them! All in all, it took about an hour or so from start to finish.

Here it is while it was still new!