Mouse's I-Spy Quilt

Back in January, the Mouse and I pieced some I-Spy quilts for charity, at my friend Renske's farm. Here we are, the four charity quilters, posing with what we were able to complete that first day.

Mouse brought hers home and finished piecing the rows to make a crib-sized quilt, and I added the green border for her. It was then handquilted by an acquaintance of Renske's and donated to a charity Quilt Auction this spring.

A couple of weeks before the Auction, Mouse's quilt was on display, along with others destined for the same auction,  at a local museum. Here she is pictured standing in front of it.

It was auctioned for $350, and the full amount will go to charitable relief efforts! Yay Mouse! Way to go! What a great accomplishment for such a young lady. I'm very proud of her!

Update on cottage quilt

I said I would post a better picture of my Thousand Pyramids quilt, made for our bed at the cottage, so here it is!

I'm still happy with the scrappy look, and I used a number of fabrics with a cottagey theme, like cabins, bears and wood grain, etc. I let Barry pick the backing fabric, and he chose a gold flannel, so it's nice and snuggly.

With this quilt, I've finally fulfilled my goal to "Sleep under a quilt I've made myself", since my other finished pieces were twin-size or smaller.

I liked the triangle pattern, and would like to make another some time. I saw a great quilt in a quilt store, where the upright triangles were all a dark brown batik and all the down-pointing triangles were bright batiks. It looked like a wonderful jewel box of colour! I've also seen a pyramid quilt done in blue and white only, which was quite striking. So much inspiration, so little time...!!!

Yoga bag

For some time, my yoga-loving husband Barry had been hinting that I should make him a bag for his yoga mat. Inspired by some pins I saw on Pinterest, I decided to make him a fun but masculine bag, using a pant leg from a pair of old jeans.

At first, I was going to use blue denim, and then find a nice fabric to use as a contrast cuff and strap. But after going through my stash and finding a couple of lovely black and gold koi print fat quarters, I opted to switch to a retired pair of black denim jeans.

I sliced off one leg from the jeans, cut it open along the inseam, then squared it up as best as I could (even "straight leg" pant legs are much more tapered than you might think!) The main thing was to keep enough fabric to easily fit around a rolled up yoga mat, including plenty of room for a seam.

I cut a circle out of the koi fabric and used it to decorate the bag; I then stitched the tube closed again, securing the two ends of the shoulder strap (also made from koi fabric) in the seam.
To finish the closed end of the bag, I cut a circle of black denim of a slightly larger circumference than the end of the denim tube. I wanted to personalize the bag, but preserve that "yoga look", so I googled the Sanskrit word for "Bear", Barry's nickname. I printed out the Sanskrit lettering, used an exacto knife to slice out the letters to make a stencil, then marked the word out on the denim circle. Denim is pretty thick fabric, so my sewing machine worked slowly to trace the lines of the marking in a satin stitch, using gold thread. It was the hardest and slowest part of the hold project, to tell you the truth. And since I don't read Sanskrit, I have to trust that this word actually is "bear". 

I inverted the tube of the bag and meticulously pinned the end circle in place, then stitched around the circumference three times. At the open end of the bag, I made a cuff of koi fabric, stitched it in place, then top stitched.

What do you think? Does this bag scream, "I am a Yoga man"? Well, hubby is happy with it, so I guess that's all that counts!