The Betsy Travel Bag

I made a really fun bag last week.  It’s The Betsy Travel Bag by Kristi of Schnitzel and Boo.  It’s the perfect size for a weekend away. 

 

There are plenty of pockets on all sides.

 

The interior is spacious with a side pocket, a zipper pocket and  even a hook for your keys. I also like that it has both a strap and handles.  I can’t wait to use this bag!

 

I almost forgot, I was actually lucky enough to win a copy of the pattern!  Isn’t that awesome?!!!  If you would like to purchase the pattern to make a bag for yourself, it can be found HERE at Rebel Craft Media.  They also hosted a very helpful sew-a-long with more pictures HERE.

Happy Sewing!

The Stash Bash 2014

 

I little over a week ago I was lucky enough to get to attend The Stash Bash near Atlanta, GA!  It was awesome!  The Stash Bash is a casual and fun sewing retreat in a camp like setting.  I had such a great time!  This retreat was very different from Sewing Summit.  While I loved Sewing Summit very much it was a lot more go go go!  You have to move quickly from one class to the next and don’t get much time to socialize until the open sew time late at night. The Stash Bash in comparison was just open sew time with one optional class. 

It was great to really get to know the ladies at the retreat and to just be relaxed and sew, shop and goof off.

This is our awesome sewing room!

 

The mastermind behind this retreat is Chris Warnick aka Freckle Mama.  (FYI those would be Margarita cupcakes!)

Chris did such a fabulous job organizing the event and the swag that she and her friends were able to get for us was seriously OUT OF CONTROL!

Okay here come the pictures!

My roommate Kim and I.   We tried to get a decent selfie and not crack up and ended up having someone else take our picture.

We had just a “few” outtakes.    Kim and I met at Sewing Summit and it was fun to get to know her better.

I really loved hanging out with all of these ladies.  This is during the official “pajama party” but I’m not going to lie, most of us were dressed like this the whole weekend.

Pouches filled with goodies for my roomate, my secret swap partner and our host.

Goodie bag waiting for me when I arrived.  Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the awesome swag!

Kira with Kim modeling her munki munki nightgown. (Soon to be transformed into a Super Tote!)

Dorking it up with my fellow Modern InstaBee Hive Five members, Lelsie, Kim and Karrie.  Hive 5 High 5!

We had a wonderful time shopping at this beautiful store, A Scarlet Thread.

We had a very “high stakes” gambling night with fat quarters of fabric as our chips.

I won pretty big!

The craziest thing happened at The Stash Bash.  I ran into Sonya, a sorority sister, from 20 years ago!  She is so sweet and even made me this awesome flag that is hanging in my sewing area.

The one optional class that I mentioned for the Sew Together Bag and was taught by Kristi of Schnitzle and Boo.  It is a really great bag and was fun to make even if I was so sleep deprived that a made a lot of silly mistakes.  I love it!

I even started and finished my MQG Michael Miller fabric challenge quilt top!  Woohoo.  The pattern is Playing Cards from the book, Modern Bee.

In a nutshell, The Stash Bash was awesome and I can’t wait to go back next year!

I will leave you with this PSA.

Margaritas do not help with quilt math!    Ha!

 

Happy Sewing!

Half Square Triangle Quilt

 

I finished my half square triangle quilt!

As I shared with you in this post, I was fortunate enough to attend Sewing Summit a couple of weeks ago. 

One of the classes that I took was the Half Square Triangle Quilt Top class with Amy Smart from Diary of a Quilter.  It was a really fun class and perfect for someone who is very new to quilting like me. 

Amy had us cut our squares before arriving at Sewing Summit which was great because we could get right into sewing.

Between the class time and the two open sew times I went to, I was able to finish my quilt top while at Sewing Summit.

Once I returned home, I knew that I wanted to finish the quilt as soon as possible so that it wouldn’t get pushed to the back burner. 

I pieced together my quilt back and prepared my quilt top for quilting by drawing accurate quilt lines on it.  I am so glad that I did this because I REALLY had to wrestle it through the very small throat space on my little Brother sewing machine.  Only 5 1/2” of throat space, ugh!  It would have been very difficult to keep my quilt lines straight without having the markings.

Originally I quilted lines 1” apart but it really wasn’t the look I wanted.  I decided to add an additional line of quilting between each line so that they would be 1/2'” apart. 

This was what I was looking for.  I like how the texture really looks different between the white and and the color pieces.

I used my scraps to make the quilt back a little more interesting.

Out out of pure luck, the quilt lines lined up perfectly!

Of course I didn’t plan ahead and pick out a fabric for the binding but I think that this one works pretty well.

I am pleased with it and proud of myself for completing it.

Overall, I enjoyed piecing the quilt top best and I even enjoyed sewing on the binding.  The actual quilting of the the quilt, I found rather difficult.  Mostly because I need a machine with a little more power and a lot more throat space.  I am beginning to understand why paying for someone to long arm quilt it for you is so appealing.

On Saturday, I attended my first Modern Quilt Guild meeting.  The RIMQG will be officially joining the MQG next month which is exciting!  Anyway, it was fun to meet some ladies who have the same interest as me and I was even brave enough to share my little quilt.  Which is saying something after seeing some of the beautiful quilts that were shown at the meeting.  Go check them out here.

If you have never made a quilt before, the Half Square Triangle Quilt is a good place to start.  There are many tutorials out there. Here is a good one by Jeni Baker of In Color Order.  Amy Smart of Diary of A Quilter has an entire Beginning Quilting Series.

Happy Sewing,