Purses, Bags and More Blog Tour and Giveaway!

Welcome!  We're starting off the week of a great new book's tour here at tinkerfrog.  I was asked by Clotilde to join in and review a pattern from Pearl Louise Krush's book Purses, Bags and More.

My pattern to review is the Posy Patchwork.  It is so sweet.  This book is full of great tips and techniques for personalizing bags for any occasion.

Here is my scrappy version of the bag!  My friend Caitlyn is moving to San Diego for a music therapy internship and I whipped this up for her as a knitting bag.  All of those pockets on the outside will be perfect for this!  I loved the use of binding on the top edge.  It really took the pain out of trying to turn the bag inside out.  I machine stitched the binding down, rather than hand sewing it, which was painless!

 
The only fabrics that I repeated were all of the linings.  She has great cutting instructions that made figuring out how to cut the sizes needed very simple.

You can find the book here.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!  If you'd like a chance to win a copy, just leave a comment making sure I can contact you if you win!  I'll pick a winner on Friday, March 25 at the end of the tour.


Be sure to check out more projects from the book on the blog tour!

Tuesday, March 22--Cindy of Sew Blessed
Wednesday, March 23--Stephanie of Unfinished Project Party
Thursday, March 24--Ruth of Sew Chic
Friday, March 25-- Julie of From These Hands

Have a happy Monday!

Compromising your values

Lots of fun and frustration was had at my house playing with bleach, vinegar and fabric recently.  I got some plexiglass circles and triangles to try some of the techniques from Malka Dubrawsky's Color Your Cloth.  I got the book when it first came out in 2009 and have wanted to try this since, but just got the "tools" for Christmas.  It isn't as easy as it looks, but I loved her results!  So, in an effort to get a similar effect without wasting any more fabric, I discharged some squares and sewed them into half square triangles with their original counterparts to great effect.  I LOVE this!!!

The half square triangles, which I have quite an obsession with anyway, became these pillows.  This technique naturally lent itself to a layout highlighting the values.  Simple outline quilting left these so stinking soft!  And by stinking I don't mean that they reek of bleach.  The technique of bleaching, counteracting the bleach with vinegar and rinsing, left them smelling pretty good from the get go!

Did I mention how naughty it feels to deliberately bleach Flea Market Fancy?  Good naughty.  But maybe that's just because it worked!

I'll be teaching these pillows at Mama Said Sew as a two part class on Mondays April 4th and 11th.  The class schedule should be announced soon! 

And we have a few spots left at our spring retreat with sewtakeahike!  Just so you know, I host awesome retreats--so if you're on the fence, let my culinary degree help entice you!  Good, good food.  Great workshops.  Incredible laughter(I'm pretty funny , too!).  And in short, an experience you'll want to make an annual event!  Hope to see you there!

Wickedly belated, but better late than never

Last summer, I bought yards and yards of fabric to make Tade a quilt for his birthday in August.  A week before his birthday, I frantically spent a couple of hours throwing together some huge rectangles of fabric into something approximating a quilt top.  Two days before his birthday, I had it basted and planned on some straight-ish line quilting about an inch apart.  I got about 8 inches of it quilted before his birthday.

It then became a "Christmas" quilt.  I got about 7 more inches done and hung it in the closet for when I got better at straight line quilting.

Fast forward to last Saturday, when I talked to Amanda (she was making foccacia and had some questions).  I keep talking about all of these projects that I want to make but am stifled by my WIPs.  I cannot justify starting something new until I get some of this done.  I need the space; I need them out of my head and weighing me down.

So, she "assigned" me 15 rows of stitches to get done this week and recommended lengthening my stitch length to fix my struggles with my walking foot(this was suggested months ago--I obviously hadn't tried it yet).  Wow.  I spent about 16 of the next 24 hours finishing the quilting, and had the binding sewn down by 10:30 pm on Sunday.

What an awesome feeling!  Tade told me that it's lovely and beautiful.  And I love it.  It's not much to look at from a piecing stand point, but I love it's simplicity.

And it's twin sized and he sleeps in a full size bed.  Always has.  I must have hoped that he'll still be using this quilt when he goes off to college as it would fit a dorm bed perfectly.  (photo taken at the Inn at City Park, because the full sized bed just wasn't doing it for me!)

All of the fabrics are American Jane--I love the vintage aesthetic and the bright colors! I bound it in the black Punctuation and love how scrappy that made it look.

Of course i have no pictures of that, so you'll have to take my word for it!  It's backed with a sheet.  That worked pretty well for me, I'll be doing that again!

Thanks, Amanda!  What should I work on this week?