Long Time, No Blog

Long time, no blog. But, I haven't been idle. On the contrary, I've been busy as a bee. Since my last post, I've sent out swaps and have received swaps. I've finished up some projects and completed some new ones. For example:

I got these groovy coasters in a coaster swap on Swap-Bot.
Back view.
I really, really like these coasters and plan to make a few sets myself.

I also completed the Halloween, Fall, Thanksgiving and special order surgical caps that have been sitting around starting at me.

I made another set of cat/dog toys for my swap-bot partners. Why, you ask? Because I mixed up the packages. D'oh!
I finally finished the High Street Messenger Bag for my friend's son. Seems that he has destroyed his backpack faster than you can say "pick that up."
I made this bag completely from stash materials. She needed something boy-ish that conformed with the requirements of the Christian school that he attends. Since we are a military town, military seemed to be a great theme. Plus, it's one of the few fabrics that I have a lot of due to the fact that our closest friends are Army.
See the camo trim there? It's a belt. My stitching of this zipper was less that straight, so in order to cover it up, I cut up a camo belt that I had and used it as a trim.
Because he is so rough on his things and also because they have so many books and notebooks, I reinforced the seams of the lining with bias tape. Hopefully, it will keep them nice and strong.
I had a 1/4 yard of camo fabric, so I used it, in conjunction with a green sheet to complete the lining and pocket linings. I also modified the bag so that he can hold more things. Rather than a 3-inch depth, this bag has a 6 inch depth. Plenty of room to hold the 2 notebooks he has to carry home and a couple of books.
Even though mom said he would never actually use this particular feature, I put it in anyway because I wanted to get a feel for this pattern. I'm sure that there will never be a pencil in the pen/pencil holder, but just in case....
Yet another zippered compartment. I have to say that after zipper number 2, I wasn't feeling number 3. It almost felt like there were 300 zippers. I didn't have any 12-inch zippers in my stash (go figure), so I went with jacket zippers, which I think will do better in the long run. Here's another swap package I got from a Swap-Bot swap. For this one we had to send 5 FQs, a spool of thread and a handmade giftie. As you can see, I got much more than that!

And here's what I got for a handmade giftie. Handmade Halloween cards! The pictures, of course, don't do them justice. I love them!!! I got these great fabrics from my swap partner in a fabric swap. We were supposed to stuff as much fabric as we could in a 6x9 envelope. As you can see, my partner sent me much more than that! I'm glad that she did, because I did the same thing for my swap partner! The striped fabric is extra special -- it's Japanese!! This package also came with some Japanese tea (mmmm).
Here's the full view of the bird panel. Isn't it beautiful? I think I'm going to make a mini-quilt to hang on the wall in the bird's room. Of course, then it will have to go in the wash a lot. Perhaps it would work on the door and then everyone would know that it's bird sanctuary!
Here are the coasters that I made for the coaster swap. Of course, I had to make them so much more complicated than the tutorial. In the tutorial, the pieces of the owl are just fused on with Wonder Under. I, of course, can't stop at that and had to sew every piece on, in addition to the wonder under. Talk about some small sewing spaces!!
They are starting to grow on me, but I doubt that I will do any more applique work with pieces this small. Too tedious and fussy.
Here's the finished package, ready to go out the door, complete with a little extra fabric.
I also made a cheater quilt for a puppy who was Bootsy's partner for the Pet Pen-Pals swap on the Bot. For this swap, we had to make a toy for our partner, in addition to sending a pack of treats and a letter from our pet. (LOL!). Since Lillie, the 8-month old basset, likes blankets, I made her one.
This is yet another stash project, which they all will be for quite some time.
As you can see, I played around with free motion quilting since (a) my machine has that ability and (b) my mom send me a quilting foot.
It's not the best job of FMQ -- I actually don't have a clue. I just meandered around until it was quilted.
Here is the package that I sent out for my halloween FQ swap.
As you can see, my handmade item was a bag. I wanted to do a little treat tote out of placemats, but I couldn't find the placemats that I wanted to use! Go figure.
This time my crazy stash came to the rescue again. I just looked in my purse making tote and found this fun handles set. Presto, chango, a cute Halloween bag.
Well, that's all for now folks. I've got to get to work -- the whistle blows in one minute. Plus, I really need a pop tart and some coffee.

Until next time, happy sewing.