Some finishes, some gifts and a slight catastrophe and other stuff....

I needed something to hold all my sewing bits so while I'm Mum-sitting, I can do hand work and get some progress made on projects.  I bought this pretty purple and turquoise fabric and happened to have a matching mermaid bitty lying around so I designed this sewing wallet to hold all my accessories.  A friend, Cindy Sharp, had just sent me the cute felt needle book that looks like a little white cat (photos below) and it had to have a special place in it.  I love how it all turned out. 

Inside- several pockets and a zippered compartment.  I put half of a magnetic closure inside one of the little pockets to hold the little scissors in place. 

I think the cat is my favorite thing about all of it.  You'll see how cute it is in a second.

Front and back- hair elastic closure.

Cindy sent me the needle book just out of the blue.  I wept just a few tears when I opened it, I was that touched.

 

Cindy and her entire family are big cat lovers, they have some really special ones. 

See how the tail tucks under that flap to hold it closed?  Very clever!

And inside- fish in the belly, to hold the needles!  Love this, so cute!

Another friend of mine, Sil, in Brazil made a mini quilt like this for a swap.  I told her I wanted to copy it and with her blessing, I did.  Without the borders, it's 12" x 12".  I used the tutorial by Elizabeth Hartmann at Oh, Fransson!- the tutorial is here.  Like Sil, though, I used white for the wonky stars and let the background be the rainbow of colors.  I still haven't finished it, though, because I'm not sure how to quilt it yet.

My friend Kimmie got married and a bunch of the bitty block makers made her a bunch of surprise wedding-themed bitties.  This is one of the ones I made for her.  She married Andy.   Andy's aunt Bee set them up, pestering Kimmie to give Andy a date, to see if they liked each other.  Kimmie finally gave in and guess what, they fell in love!  Now they are happily married. She loved this block and is threatening to put it into a special frame to hang on the wall.  She got a lot of really clever, unique bitties and she was very touched by it all.  Giddy, even.  ;)

Kimmie is one of my best Flickr buddies and I just love her to pieces, she's funny and witty and sarcastic, we get along great. She's one of the girls who love The Wizard of Oz with a passion.  :)

And this is what I recently received in the FLiRTS swap, a sewing tote and a great first-aid kit that looks like a zombie, LOL.  I love both pieces so much!  Kimmie named the zombie "effed-up Frank".  roflmao  Big thanks to another Cindy, aka yayaquilter at Flickr!  She made me exactly what I would have wanted and I'm using the tote every day when I go to my parents' house.  Thanks so much, Cindy!

And in a completely different swap, I made this pincushion set for a partner.  Twice.  Well, not the whole set, but the chunky pincushion part I had to.  I brought it downstairs to show my husband and then I set it on the coffee table to admire it before taking it back up.  He promptly tossed a greasy grimy tool onto the table and it landed right on a yellow part of the pincushion.  I wanted to murderize him!  Men!  Grrrr.  You can't have anything nice for 2 seconds!  I had to remake the pincushion the next day, which set me back a good 4 or 5 hours, but lucky for him, he apologized all over the place numerous times, which is not normal for him.  LOL

It can be used alone by unhooking the elastics from the buttons.  This was another project from Oh, Fransson!  I did change the shape of the pincushion and I made it so it could come apart, but her tutorial is great and I learned a new trick when making the little bag.

The pattern for the bee came from Pieced By Number.  The black/yellow/gray of the pincushion just screamed "bee" to me.  :)  Hopefully my partner will like it, too. 

And I'll leave you with this- a five-leafed clover.  Found that on my way back from the compost heap one day.  :)  How lucky am I?  (I don't know, just recently I broke a crown, my washing machine died and so did our water heater.  Guess if I hadn't found this, it would have been worse?  LOL)