Pouches and a tote

Today I decided to squeeze in a little crafting and made a couple pouches for Layden's teacher and a tote bag for our babysitter. Layden picked out the fabric for his teacher and the tote is lined with black fabric with eggs (they have chickens). Not sure why I picked the outer fabric for the tote, I just liked it. Hopefully they will like them. I am please with how both turned out and the tote went the smoothest of any tote so far. The outer and inner fabrics have fusible interfacing and I sewed up the bottom similar to the pouch sides. This method leaves you with a serged edge at the bottom but, for me, it makes it so much easier and quicker to get the rest of the bag looking nice.

Dare to Be Square

There has not been much time around here for much other than school and sleep but over Thanksgiving my husband and I did take a little vacation and one of those days was spent at Powell's. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of visiting Powell's, it is a book store (new and used) that covers a full city block in Portland, OR. While I was there I picked up Dare to be Square Quilting by, Boo Davis. This may be the first quilting book I have found where I would like to make every quilt. My mom is well on her way with three quilt tops finished so far, Guys, Robot and a third that must remain a surprise. The quilts are all amazingly cute and more importantly, easy. They are made up of rectangles and squares, perfect!

Modern Doll House

Ever since I first saw this doll house on Made by Joel I loved it. I also appreciated that it would be an incredibly simple sort of doll house to make. Unfortunately I just have the time for even such a simple doll house so I had to fake it. I put together this house for the kids this morning from two old CD/DVD storage boxes. I just glue, clamped and 20 minutes later voila! Hopefully they will continue to enjoy it and it can be supplemented with less hastily improvised furniture.

Very Busy

Grad school is keeping me so very busy but I did grab time to make these pajama pants for the kids. They picked out their own fabrics. I just folded a pair of pants in half, laid them on top of the fabric (outer pants edge along a fold) and cut around leaving 1/2" for seams and an extra few inches at the top and bottom for hemming and elastic. About a half hour total for the two pairs.