A few extras

Deadlines for two swaps are coming up fast and I have been busy trying to finish the minis and a few fun extras. This weekend I got the binding half on both minis, so soon I will need to sit down with a needle and thread and get stitching.

For my rainbow mini swap I made this cute zippered pouch. My partner really likes Heather Ross fabric, so I fussy cut this busy little bee lady for the focus. I put the same churn dash block with the bee in the middle on the back of her mini. I tried a new way of finishing the bottom and really like how it turned out. Although I should have planned better and not had all those bulky seams come together. Two sewing needles were snapped in the process. I finished it will a metal zipper pull stamped handmade that I recently found on Etsy. I love all the details on this pouch and kinda wish I could keep it!

For my cat-themed swap, I whipped up this tea towel with my favourite Cotton + Steel tiger kitties. I mitered the corners and added a twill tape loop in one corner to hang it, if she likes. Again, this will be tough to let go. I love those odd little creatures.

Both my swap partners have the sweetest little daughters, and I wanted to make something sweet just for them to include in the package. What could be better than two drawstring pouches? I figured I couldn't go wrong with anything Frozen themed, and the animal parade fabric I picked up last fall in Spain. I bought a few fun little things to tuck inside for the girls.

And I'm still busy sewing for the quilting bee and looking after my group. I made these two extra Tic Tac Toe Blocks. Love this colour scheme and the low-volume background.

This month's queen bee chose a paper pieced pattern, so I made a practice block. Definitely a must this time since I've never done paper piecing before! But it went OK, thanks to much cheerleading from IG friends. I'll post my first ever paper-pieced block later, along with the one I'm making for the queen bee. I already have the fabric picked out and cut, I just need the time. I feel like that's my constant refrain!

All mine!

Finally I finished a quilted pillow just for me! I had this awesome paint-by-numbers fabric from Moda for quite some time. It's one of those prints languishing in your stash that you keep pulling out and then putting back. The large design of the deer and bird fabric made me hesitant to cut it into bits. Then I spotted this pillow pattern and it was perfect to preserve those deer.

The quilting is quite dense, but I left the centre square mostly alone. Two different thread colours were used and I just had fun with the straight-line quilting. I love the back just as much with the bird fabric and faux wood. And more of the crazy bright orange from the binding. (Truth be told, I had to add the cuff because that was the largest bit of the bird fabric I had left after fussy-cutting flowers from it for the front. But, shh, it's our secret!)

The pillow looks great on my deep brown couch. Now to make my Hazel into a pillow to join it!