Sew Powerful Purse #35 (for 2026)

Love is in the Air is the monthly challenge over at the Sew Powerful Facebook group. I have been working on several hearts and this one I finished yesterday. I painted the textured background with metallic gold Shiva Paintstik (oil based paint that cleans with water), then appliquéd the batik fabric pieced heart, added rainbow rickrack & French knots all around. I even made the strap using 2 fabrics. I love how this one turned out.

Flap lining is a patchwork look with hearts too.

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Rainbow Challenge: Green Blocks

This month for the Rainbow Challenge is Green. I am continuing with making string blocks. I made as many green string blocks as I could before running out of long enough scraps to use. I made 12 blocks. Click on the icon on the sidebar for more info from SoScrappy.

Green string blocks.

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SAHRR Prompt 3 (Stay at Home Round Robin 2026)

Prompt 3 came from Emily of The Darling Dogwood. Emily said, "This week, we’re taking inspiration from the animal kingdom!  Any animal counts, from the smallest ant to the biggest of sharks. There are lots of ways to interpret Animal Kingdom".  Here are some ideas:

• A block or unit named after an animal: Bear Paw, Monkey Wrench, Snail's Trail, Birds in the Air, Shoo Fly, Puss in the Corner...there are so many!  Looking for something simple?  There's always that classic quilt unit, Flying Geese.
• Appliqué of an animal
• Pieced block that looks like an animal
• Fabric that contains animals

I thought about this and had a hard deciding what to do, so I finally decided that I would make an appliqué, since I do appliqué much better than piecing 😉. Since this is Valentine's Day month, I thought I would add the die cut word, Love in the center and then add a sheep and some fussy cut butterflies from fabric. All of these appliqué pieces I had already cut out ( from years ago) and ready to add to a background. So this one was easy and I do like how it looks on top of the piece (so far). I decided not to sew it into the piece just yet, as I will wait and see what prompt 4 is and what I make for that prompt, in case I want to place this block elsewhere on the quilt top.

Love die cut, sheep appliqué and fussy cut butterflies from fabric.

I will wait to sew the top block in place until later, just in case I decide to rearrange where I want the block to be.

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Stay at Home Round Robin 2026 (SAHRR) Prompt 2

Prompt 2 was to make it a double. I had lots of ideas, but they just weren't working for me 😢. I made a block, but I made it 8" finished instead of 9" finished (like the sunflower). I could have sworn I made an 8" sunflower block, so I didn't bother to measure it to make absolutely sure, 😭which was my first mistake! It would have looked weird to add such narrow strips to make it an inch larger. I saved the block in case it might work somewhere else later on, or I can put it on the back of the quilt and use it as a label? 

I had another idea and made one block, but cut out several pieces to make more. Well that block didn't work size wise either!!! Ugh! I blame it all on having to downsize into one bedroom, whereas I had 2 rooms before. Hubby wanted a room for his exercise stuff and computer, so it has taken me a long time to organize, toss out stuff and donate stuff to be able to fit it in my room. I did get to keep both closets and have some space in the garage too (but it's freezing cold out there though now). I am trying to label everything to help find things, but until I get it in my head where things are located and get used to this new setup, I think my creativity has taken a nosedive for the moment!!! Plus. I still have a lot of fine tuning to do and a few more things to find a home for. So, I am really not feeling it so far with this second prompt. It's me I know.

I ended up making 3, 6" finished Friendship Stars variation and added appliqué hearts in the centers for my take on making it a double. Maybe it's the colors I chose? Maybe it's the block? I don't know, but it just doesn't look or feel quite right to me. Oh well it is what it is for now and I already know I will be donating this quilt to Ukraine. 

Friendship Stars variation with appliqué heart centers.

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Sew Powerful Purses #32-34 for 2026

3 more purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project that I finished, but hadn't taken photos yet. 

This purse was made with painting a texture background first, then I used my Crafter's Edge die cut

 to cut out the basket and die cut flowers. The basket is actually woven and I blanket stitched around the exterior of the basket only. The fabric that I used for the basket was first treated on the back with Mod Podge fabric formula so that it won't fray where the raw edges are. The flower appliqués are from that rainbow tie dye tank top that I have been upcycling into appliqué flowers. These flowers are small, so I was able to cut them from smaller leftover bits of the tank top. I wasn't sure about this as a purse flap at first, but I really like it. In fact, I am sending this purse, along with another purse I had made last year, to be hand delivered in July to 2 special girls in Zambia. I won 2 Picture Your Purse photos of a girl holding holding a purse I made that will be hand delivered as part of the 2025 Sew Powerful fundraiser event in September. In order to qualify to receive a photo of a purse I made being held by the actual girl who will receive it, I had to help raise $1,000 or more in donations from people like YOU (thank you sooo much!), or make a lot of purses and be in the Top Ten Purse makers during the September Sew-a-thon, which I did by making 160 purses in September alone (508 purses total for all of 2025). If I did both, which I did, then I will receive photos of 2 different girls holding the purses that I made. Something to look forward to later this year. I need to send my 2 purses in 2-4 weeks before they leave for Zambia, so I will hold on to them until then and hope I have more purses to mail in anyhow.

Another flower appliqué from the tank top.

A Paisley Zentangle on painted background. I made the Zentangle years ago in my Zentangle phase, 😆.

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Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) 2026 Prompt One

Brenda of Songbird Designs gave us the first prompt for our SAHRR, which is Hourglass Blocks. I want to make sure I keep this quilt from getting too large (as I cannot quilt large quilts myself anymore), so I opted to make 2 Hourglass quilt blocks and place them on the sides only. Brenda placed her blocks top/bottom only and others may have gone all around the center block. I need to get this photo added to the Linky party on her blog and see what the others have done with this first prompt while I am there. 

Sunflower center block and Hourglass side blocks.

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Sew Powerful Purses #30-31 for 2026

2 scrappy pieced flaps to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. 

2 scrappy batik fabric flaps. I added an iron on flower embroidery to the left purse. I was an Amazon Vine Customer reviewer for 2 months, so I ordered whatever sewing/craft stuff that looked interesting to try. I got a couple of packages of assorted colors and sizes of a few iron on embroidery flowers and this is the first time using it. It worked well, but I prefer my own appliqué to add to a purse flap. 

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