crazy cute clutch : a tutorial

Hello, friends! Here's a tutorial for a quick and easy Quilt-As-You-Go clutch that I want to make dozens of! This is a freebie pattern to make in conjunction with my Craftsy class, which you can purchase here and get 25% off!

Cut a piece of batting 12" x 18." Draw two lines, one 6.5" from the bottom, and the second 13" from the bottom. Draw directional arrows as shown in the image below. These are guides for using directional fabrics, since the clutch is simply folded. Make sure that any directional prints you use face up as the arrows show.

Fill in the batting with your favorite QAYG technique. As you can see if you look closely, I didn't follow my own instructions, and sewed one of my pieces on upside down. Do as I say, not as I do!
Trim your QAYG panel to 11.5" x 17.5"

For the lining, cut one piece 7" x 11.5" and a second piece 11.5" x 11.5"
Cut two pieces of Decor-Bond, or the interfacing of your choice, the same sizes as your lining pieces and iron it to the wrong side

For the (optional) pocket, cut one piece 8" x 10"

Cut a piece of interfacing the same size as your pocket, and iron it as well. In the image below, the pocket already has the interfacing ironed on!

measure down 5.5" from the top of your larger lining piece and mark the center. make a basic pocket and sew it here or insert a zippered pocket, as desired. I didn't take pictures of this, it's just a pocket!

Place your smaller lining piece on top of your larger lining piece, making sure your pocket faces the top, and sew 2"across the bottom. Leaving a 4" opening for turning, sew 2" at the other end of the seam.

Press the seam to one side.

Place your QAYG panel on top of you lining, making sure that you have any directional prints facing the right way, and use a saucer to round the corners.

If you'd like to use a magnetic snap as the closure, mark the center of your lining, and insert half of the snap 1 1/2" from the top. Measure up 3" from the bottom of your QAYG panel, and place the other half of the snap at the center.

Cut a 1" x 4" piece of fabric if you'd like a place to clip a handle. Fold the fabric in half lengthwise and press. Open the fabric up and press the raw edges to the center. Fold back in half, and edge stitch to close!

Loop the fabric like so.

And place it 6" from the top of the bag and baste it down with a 1/8" to 1/4" seam

Place the QAYG panel and lining right sides together and sew around the entire thing with a 1/2" seam allowance. You can of course pin them together if you so choose.

Clip the corners and notch the curves.

Turn your clutch right sides out through the opening we left in the lining.

Square up your corners, smooth out your curves, and press well. Sew the opening shut either by hand or machine. I chose to edgestitch with my machine as the QAYG disguises the stitch line and it's going to be on the bottom fold line anyway!  Then top stitch around the entire piece.

Fold the bottom up, and stitch both sides with a 1/4" seam. And, yes, I do know the seam is already sewn. I just forgot to take a picture while I was sewing it. What you can't see, is that my needle is broken, because I had just broken it. So you might want to use a larger needle and possibly a walking foot for this step. Once again, as I say, not as I do!

And there you have it! A Crazy Cute Clutch! Now sew like the wind, people!

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Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags: a Giveaway!!

Wow!  It's been a whirlwind couple of months for me!  I was approached at QuiltCon in February about the possibility of teaching a patchwork bag class for Craftsy, and after a flurry of work, blood, sweat and many tears(of joy, of course),  it's now live on Craftsy! You can find my class here(this link is good for 25%off)!

The Craftsy platform is an amazing tool for sewists, as you can pause the class at any time, use the 30 second playback to see something again, and ask questions at the point in the video where you have questions, so I have a context for answering!!  I'll be there to answer your questions and help you along the way.  I look forward to seeing what you make and getting your feedback, as well!

I'm also set to giveaway one free class to one of my readers!  

All you have to do to enter is sign up for Craftsy using this link (it's free!).  If you already have a Craftsy account, no problem, you can still enter to win by simply using your login ! (Use the link to enter!)  

The giveaway will be open until Wednesday, June 15, and the winner will automatically have the class delivered to their Craftsy account!




You can also get 25% off Cheryl Arkison's Craftsy class by following this link!  











And here's 25% off Jacquie Gering's Craftsy class!  Love these ladies!







Have a great day!!!

xo, Tara

This Ain't How the Pros Do It: an amateur guide to bias binding

Hi! I'm baaaack! (that just autocorrected to Barack, which made me giggle uncontrollably!) If you've found this via Craftsy, then welcome! If you've been following my little blog for years, then many apologies! You should really follow my Instagram feed @tinkerfrog if you want to see what I've been up to!
And here's the tutorial that has had you all chomping at the bit, lol!
Bias binding has always intimidated me, so I only use it when working with curves. There are some fantastic tutorials out there, like this one and this one. But if those don't fit your needs, here's this lazy girl's mind-blowingly fancy technique!
First, lay your carefully chosen fabric out on your cutting mat. Trim off the selvedge on the side facing you, and square up the left side of your fabric.

Second, line up the 45 degree line on your ruler with the left edge of your fabric.

Make your first cut. I usually cut my strips to 2 1/4", which works well for most quilts either machine or hand bound, as well as the visible binding on my Tinker Tote. For the hidden binding on my Tinker Tote, I cut my strips to 1 1/4". Continue moving your ruler, lining up your fabric edge with the correct marks on your ruler.

The first few will be short, so you decide if you want to relegate those to the scrap pile, or piece them all together. It really depends on the size fabric you began with and how many inches of binding you need! Cut strips until you have enough to bind your project.

Overlap your ends and stitch together.

Fold your binding in half and press well. You are now ready to attach your binding!

Thanks so much for visiting! Sew like the wind!
xo, tara

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Quilting on a Sunday Morning

Gumdrops have always been one of those candies that I'm not sure why they make anymore. Sure, they look great on a gingerbread house at Christmastime, but who eats them? Not me.

But when I was chatting with Amanda, and she asked me to test her gumdrops pattern from Sunday Morning Quilts, of course I said yes. I had seen the quilt in person when I visited in February of last year and it was so appealing!

I jumped right in, with a color scheme that was "current," wanting to put my stamp on it. The pattern was very well written, undoubtedly, but my gumdrops in yellow on grey was a bit lackluster.

See what I mean? The cuteness of the gumdrops are completely lost with this uninspired color palette. What to do, what to do? (it wasn't helped by it's decidedly awkward size of 19" x 44," either). I stuck it on a shelf for a year waiting for inspiration to strike.

Rather than inspiration, it was a push from Amanda to talk about the pattern testers work on her blog that had me pulling it out again. I mean, my sweet friend links to my blog with some frequency, but this felt like it needed a solid effort on my part to participate!

Pillows, I was thinking, to which Amanda replied that it was no surprise. Turns out I'm not a big quilter, but quite the pillower.

They might no longer look like gumdrops, but in yellow I think that's okay. (And as it turns out, gumdrops from Whole Foods, just like to ones pictured on the quilt in the book, are pretty tasty.)

Finished, finally, and just in time to donate to a silent auction to benefit the High Park Fire victims. This wildfire is hitting close to home, it seems that we all know someone whose home was lost, or evacuated. 82,000 acres and still growing. It makes my heart hurt. Please pray for rain, we could really use it here in Colorado!

The View from the Cheap Seats

So, you might have heard that Amanda Jean and Cheryl wrote a book. It's really, really good. It is purportedly flying off the shelves. And I was lucky enough to go to Quilt Market in Kansas City to witness these two fantastic ladies in their element. It was a joy to watch.

 

Sunday Morning Quilts--book signing in the United Notions booth

Now, I didn't really have any business being there. But who was I to pass up the opportunity to be a fly on the wall? I drove out with the amazing Angela of Mama Said Sew, here in Fort Collins. If you live under a rock and haven't heard, the Sweetwater family of designers debuted their next fabric line, named after Ange's shop. That. Is. So. Stinking. Cool.

These ladies were so sweet(their design company is so aptly named!) and cute and I could have happily packed them up to take home with us. They're going to give Angela scraps to make some shop samples and I will gleefully go pick those up in Fort Morgan. It's possible that I'm the first person ever to have any level of excitement about traveling to that town!

 

Angela in the Sweetwater booth with Lisa and Susan

 

mama said sew candy--yum!

So I got to meet some pretty fantastic people. Jacquie Gehring of Tallgrass Prairie Studio was there promoting her new book, Quilting Modern. She pretty much rocks. I read her blog and see her quilts, and I always think that this is a woman who takes her art very seriously. She couldn't have been more charming and personable. We are in the planning stages, but she will be here in Fort Collins in August for a trunk show!

Rashida Coleman-Hale was there promoting Zakka Style and her fabric line, Washi. I might now be her biggest fan. She came to dinner with us on Saturday night as well as Rae of Made by Rae. It's pretty cool to have a friend like Amanda, because otherwise I wouldn't have rubbed my elbows raw hobnobbing with the cool kids!

Denyse Schmidt was there with her first ever market booth. She signed a copy of her book for me, and I shoved my phone in her face to show her my "eating in bed" quilt out of Flea Market Fancy. She was incredibly gracious about the whole thing. And I might have thanked her for coming just so we could stand in her presence. Tongue in cheek, of course. I'm anxiously awaiting Chicopee; she has such a great aesthetic that really resonates with me.

I was literally teary as I talked Angela into buying some(read: 12 bolts!) of Suzuko Koseki's prints for the shop from Yuwa. I could have happily spent all of her money in this single booth. I want to swim in it. I already have plans to make this dress out of the red Shasta daisy print as soon as it comes in. You can see pictures of all the prints that she's gonna carry here in my Flickr photostream!

Liberty of London is releasing a new line of quilting cottons that are gorgeous! We chose two of the five color ways. I'm so glad that Angela has good taste! And, if in the not too distant future, they release charm packs of their Tana Lawns, that was my idea. You can thank me later.

The Kokka booth was full to over flowing with eye candy! These texty penguins cracked me up! We got the new echinos, Melody Miller's new line and a bunch of other stuff that is drool worthy! Our timing at the Kokka booth coincided with Katy, Brioni, and Tascha walking by, so they stopped to help. They have good taste too.

And, while I'm a little late for the hexagon craze, I bought some hexy papers on our road trip and Amanda taught me how to English paper piece while standing in line for an hour waiting to eat some fantastic BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's. This will become a pillow, because I prefer to machine sew hexagons, but this technique rocks!

So, that's it folks. There is so much more to say, but others took more pictures, and I'm all out. Though you should all go read the story of how I touched David Butler's arm in a very "How I Met Your Mother" moment over on Jane'sJana's blog!

Technologically Inept

When I began blogging, I had a crappy camera and even crappier computer.  Not much has changed.  We got a new camera(with credit card points) that wasn't as crappy, I did okay for a while, and then last Christmas(2010) I got a new netbook.  I thought my problems were solved!

But then it was all about taking the pictures, downloading them, using my (awesome?) new computer with the little bitty screen, and somehow blogging fell through the cracks.  I didn't even have time to make things to blog about if I was going to try to blog too.  

And then I dropped my camera, and things went from bad to worse.  

 So, I worked really hard, and we saved our money, and, for Christmas last(2011), I was gifted a phone upgrade from the iPhone 3GS to the new iPhone 4S.  And we(I) got an iPad2. I felt like all the (quilt)blocks were falling into place for me be a blogger again!  ( I also highly reccomend the apple bluetooth keyboard!)

Until today, the iPad has been just a very expensive, larger version of my old phone.  Crappy camera, no easy way to upload photos, my phone seems just like the old one, but with a better camera.

Wait!  Better camera!  Way better camera! And so today I set out to make these "toys" work for me.  And they did...

 

Apps that I LOVE!!!:

Camera+(iPhone)--Uploads pics straight to flickr.  Also e-mails multiple pictures wickedly fast.  Grandma's around the world should gift this app.  Awesome.  Not to mention all of the great features it has.  I wish I had known about this before I got the new phone, it would have improved the old phone's camera too!

goodReader(iPad)--Allows me to upload my pdf patterns directly and has sweet features for hi-lighting, making notes, etc. I will probably use this more for knitting, but how awesome to have the pattern there for quilting too.  Print the necessary templates/pattern pieces and the rest is literally at your fingertips!  (I printed all 17 pages of Anna's 241 tote before reading the directions.  My print cartridges and my husband did not thank me.)

Blogsy(iPad)--So I mistakenly thought that I would be able to use photos from my photostream to blog from the iPad.  Not so.  And then when I painstakingly cut and pasted urls from my flicker photostream, that wasn't working either.  So ready to throw the expensive toy across the room.  That's when I got a glass of wine.  I thought to myself, what would Drew do?  So, I googled it.  And there it was.  Blogsy.  This will be only my second time using it.  But so far, it rocks my world.  I can drag photos from flicker into the exact place I want them(after a few tries, but that's the learning curve, I'm sure.)  I can choose from my really random array of 5 blogs(!?!)  It has a button to let me imbed Youtube video!!!  If I were so inclined.

 So here's some random pics from my photo stream.  I hope to be here more often.  I'll be really careful with my new tools. My blog has missed me, as I have missed it!

 36 patch apron, photo taken with the old phone!

 

 Add-a-border Swap Block for the Fort Collins Modern Quilt Guild, photo taken with the new phone!

 

 Playing with my Go! Baby fabric cutter for the first time.  Kinda liking it!  New phone photo!

 

 New-to-me vintage fabric goodies for my stash, which is growing at a rather alarming rate.  Must sew more to compensate.  And another new phone photo!  Love it!

Utter Charm

I've been lucky enough to thrift a couple of lovely vintage quilt tops this spring.  I got the two on the left for an absolute song!  $4.99 and $3.99 respectively.  They both have lots of feedsack fabrics in them, though the center one has considerably fewer.  It's so very nice to know that UFOs span the decades and are not a recent affliction!

I picked this one up today and it made up for the woman in the aisle ahead of me that snagged a printed tablecloth from the fifties in amazing shape.  It's sashed in a pale yellow that lets those gorgeous feedsacks shine!

The blocks are simple but striking. This is probably my favorite block of the bunch! I don't think I'll quilt this, but back it with muslin to use as a table covering.

I picked this up a couple of months ago, and I really wish that I had some history on it.  Each of the star's centers has names embroidered on them and each time I look at it I have to smile!  There are lots of women's names and a few men's as well.  Makes me wonder if the maker identified herself by who she was married to or not.

Two of the blocks say "Mother," though only one has her age!  Thinking about how we identify ourselves, it made me wonder just how often these women were called by their given names.  I don't think I ever heard my grandfather call my Grandma her name.  It was always "Mother."  I'd like to think that these women wore beautifully handcrafted aprons, every single day.

The third quilt is a simple bow-tie that must be the newest of the three, judging by the fabric choices.  It was gifted to me by the oh so sweet and generous Elaine of Soggy Bottom Quilts.  The maker of this quilt used some seriously odd combinations of fabric, but that does just add to it's appeal.

I don't know if I'll ever quilt these as I have quite a few UFOs of my own, but they are my treasures!   I love anything vintage and am so glad that there's still a market for 30s reproductions and that many of the designers use vintage fabrics as their inspiration. 

Have a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend.  Many thanks to our troops and their families for the sacrifices they make on our behalf.  It's a time to send up many prayers and to count our blessings.  I'm off to spend the weekend with my two biggest blessings, my husband Drew and son Tade.  May you do the same!