Purple Sofia Hell

I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve this ...

There I was, perusing the shelves of a local chain fabric store with my soon to be 4 year old in tow ... when I hear the following words ...

Miss almost 4: "Sofia! Sofia!  Look Mummy, it's Princess Sofia!"

To my utter horror, she had found a whole bolt (because no-one else wants the stuff) of Princess. Sofia. PURPLE. fabric ... fabrics Gods have mercy on me!

Far out ... the kid had found her fabric utopia ...

Miss almost 4: "Can we get a Fat Quarter Mum?"

If it wasn't for that fact that I was so proud that she remembered what a Fat Quarter was, I would have had the faculties to say "No, not this time"

... but by now other customers were staring at me, no doubt suitably impressed by her quilting vocabulary, that I said "yes, sweetheart, of course we can" .... (palm to head).

{Audible groan} what to make with this stinking stuff?!

Well Miss 4 knew exactly what she wanted, and when I figure how to make the purple thing I'll let you know!

Sx

Sewing Travel Kit

I first stumbled across this tutorial whilst mindlessly trawling Pinterest ... I quickly pinned it to my Sewn Gift Ideas board and moved on to the next shiny thing ... or so I thought.  You see this little project has not left my mind.  I kept daydreaming about it and the only way I could get it off my mind was to make one!  That ever happen to you?

But how to "fit" the project in?  I decided to take the #sewtake20 route ala Night Quilter.  What a difference this blog post has made to my sewing life! Well actually, if I'm honest, my whole life, but this isn't a self-help blog, so I'll just leave that comment hanging.

The first 20 minutes saw me sewing a mini charm pack together.

The second and third (and possible fourth) lots of 20 mins saw me adding some rudimentary chunky hand quilting.

and I continued on much that way until the whole kit was finished!

I mostly followed the tutorial, but I did do a few things different to suit my supplies and mood.

1. I chose to make the thread holder out of ribbon - mostly because I don't like sewing small pieces of velrco, but also because I love a sweet bow.

2. Ribbon was also my 'material' of choice for the tie ... for the same sweet bow reason above.

3. Because I used a mini charm park to make the outer fabric (meaning I was using 2.5" squares when the dimensions only required 2" squares) it ended up being too big and I had to trim it down to the correct size.  I decided to use these trimmings to edge my pockets instead of another contrasting fabric as suggested.  I really like the look of the pieced edges BUT it was a pain to top stitch over the seam allowances.  I suggest using a walking foot if you go down that route, it will save you unpicking ugly stitches like me!

4. I pieced together some scraps from the outer fabric and grey fabric inner pockets to create the scissor pocket.  Again, because of the pieced seams, it was hard to iron under the seam allowance to top stitch.  So to get around this I sewed the scissor case to some scrap fabric (right-sides-together), left some room for turning through.  Then I ironed the opening closed and top stitched it to the inside of the case.

5. Finally, because I'm lazy ... and because it matched so well ... I used some left over binding from these quilts to bind the sewing kit.  I wouldn't do this again.  I cut my binding strips 2.5" wide, which I find great for quilts, but in this case I would stick to the tutorial which suggests 2 or 2 1/4" wide ... unless you are feeling lazy me.

As this sewing kit is a gift I filled it with some extra love ... 2 spools of Aurifil, some lovely little snips (I tied some of the spool ribbon on the end to make it easier to access the scissors from the pocket and also so that you can see that those scissors belong to that kit ... anyone else have specific scissors for each kit, or is it just me and my OCD?).

I also included the leftover mini charm squares from the pack along with some 1' hexie papers, some cute pins and a touch of Merchant Mills.

I think I've used up all of my "sweet" yearly quota making this little gift ... I'll go back to being a bogan now :)

Sx

Linking up with TGIFF and Finish It Up Friday and Sew Cute Tuesday

Highlight

In light of this blog being originally created as a time capsule of my quilting and sewing adventures, I'll be doing the odd "Dear Future Grandchildren" post to book mark my highlights.  So here goes ...

"Dear Future Grandchildren,

I had a lovely surprise in the post the other day.  Oh I must explain that the 'post' is a rudimentary and physical way to send packages/mail to people.  You probably nanoo-nanoo it these days with the other 80% of your brain that we haven't figured out how to use yet.  Anyway, I opened the package to find a magazine ... oh a 'magazine' is ... this is going to take too long to explain all these things.  I suggest you 'Google' what you don't know ... that's if Google is still around ... um ... you'll figure it out!

So, where was I?  Oh yes, magazine!  It was a copy of Country Threads (Vol. 16, No. 8) and yours truly was featured as this issue's Designer!!

Yes, you're old Nan ... a Designer!! ... see, you should totally wear that plaid with the stripes, I know what I'm talking about!

Your Mums were a bit miffed that there wasn't a picture of them in the magazine (because everything is always about them lol) but your Granddad was happy that I remembered to mention him in the article.

And the article!  It's great and spreads over three pages, showing some of the quilts I've made recently (like 37 weeks ago according to a sneak peak on Instagram) but haven't been able to blog about because of this article and impending pattern releases.

So there you go ... I've bought a few extra copies for family and you'll probably find them in a dusty box in the attic ... right under your Granddad's old golf clubs or maybe to the left of my fabric stash, because I'm sure I would have accumulated one by the time you read this.

All my love,

Nan xxx"