Hello!

You may be wondering about the title of this blog post. Pop! My water broke at 34 weeks and the baby arrived 2 days later. I’ll spare you all the gory details about everything. This all happened the weekend before Thanksgiving so what little holiday sewing I had planned did not and is not going to happen. The early arrival of our son also included a 2 week stay in the NICU for him at a hospital 45 miles from where we live. We are home now and I’m happy to say everyone is doing well and even our 3 dogs are adjusting.

About 4 days before my water broke I purchased a new straight stitch Juki sewing machine. I barely got it out of the box before the arrival of our son. Now that we are home I was able to set up the machine, read the manual, thread it, and do some test sewing. A bigger project will have to wait til a little later.

I recently was turned on to patterns by Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness. If you’re not familiar with Sara’s patterns she makes bag and accessory patterns. In addition to quilts I like making bags so I purchased several of her patterns with the intent of making Christmas presents. One thing I like about Sara’s patterns is the option buy the video to go along with the paper pattern. Since I’m a very visual person I thought it was good to have on hand. I started the Ultimate Art Organizer pattern but still need to get back to it when I have a little more time.

I used some fabric that my mom ice dyed for the cover of the Ultimate Art Organizer and I’ve made two of the interior “pages” that use elastic to hold your pens/colored pencils/markers. Toward the end of the pregnancy I was having a hard time sitting at the sewing machine so I didn’t get as far as I wanted. I would say this is considered one of the more complex patterns because there are a lot of steps and I would say some people may find the zipper installation more difficult. This one I’m making is a gift but it’s also my practice one. I have 5 more to make as gifts.

If you’re looking for a quicker sew there are also the Sew Sweetness Minikins Season 1 patterns. It’s a collection of 12 patterns and videos and they have less steps than some of the more complex bags and accessories. I haven’t made any of these yet but the Bellevue pouch and I-Spy pouch are on my to do list.

Last but not least I finished up this thread catcher and pincushion for my mom. I sewed the majority of it in the spring and then didn’t finish it. The only things I had left to do were to insert the ceramic tile in the bottom section the pincushion velcros to and fill the pincushion with walnut shells and sew it up. I used fabric from a Violet Craft collection called Palm Canyon. The pattern for the thread catcher and pincushion is by Curry Bungalow. She has an Etsy shop where she sells her patterns or you can purchase completed thread catchers from her directly.

Happy Quilting!

Camille