My Birthday Gifts

My birthday was last week and I received some wonderful birthday gifts from 3 dear friends of mine. I wanted to show you all what I received and also what I gave to my friend Tara, who has a November birthday too. Tara and I celebrate our birthdays together each year since her birthday is 6 days after my birthday. This year we had a sewing day together, which was really nice.
First from gifts from Susan~

This pattern was from my good friend Susan who lives in Oregon. She knows how I love to make bags and sent me this pattern. I hadn't seen this one before and it sure looks intriguing the way it zips together and looks like a puzzle.

Susan wrapped the bag pattern in this gorgeous sunflowers fabric! I love sunflowers and coneflowers and oh my this is the prettiest sunflower fabric I have ever seen. I  took the photo so that you could see the selvage and the name of the fabric in case anyone wanted to know who designed this and the company it came from. Susan said there were 3 colorways too. I  haven'teen the other colorways, but I love this one! I will have to use this fabric on a bag that will really show it off. Thanks Susan!!!

My friend Bobbie made the cute little polka pot bag and stuffed it full of most of these goodies. The pens and pads of paper didn't fit in the bag, but all the great notions did. Everything is so useful and I really love that darling bag. I haven't made one like that before! Thanks Bobbie!

Tara likes to make paper crafts like cards and books. This is an interesting book that folds up accordion-style. She used giant buttons as the ends of the book and pictures of quilts glued to a ribbon. This is one side of the button book and...

...when you flip it over this is the other side. Sorry but you have to scroll down a few more photos to see the book closed.

Tara also gave me all of this.

Straps from Guatemala.

A fat quarter of this fabric (that must have gotten all fuzzy from the yarn that was touching it, lol)

And this thick chunky yarn that Tara said was called bump yarn. I hadn't seen this kind of yarn before. She also included a large crochet hook, but I don't know if I will knit or crochet with this yarn or what I will make with it yet. She said it would make a nice bowl, so that is a possibility. It's so soft too.

This is the button book from above closed. Thanks Tara for all the nice gifts!!!

Now I will show you what I gave to Tara for her birthday~

I made this little bag in an Asian fabric and sewed it to a metal frame and then I braided the handle too. This is one side of the bag and...

...this is the other side of the bag.

Inside the bag is another Asian fabric for the lining. The following things I placed inside the bag.

Tara is a knitter like me, so I decorated a couple of mint tins with fabric, ribbon and made a label for each. Inside one I put some point protectors for knitting needles. These point protectors are also great for protecting the points of small scissors or seam rippers too. The other tin had stitch markers; ring markers and the safety pin style markers too.

The outside of the tins look like this.

I saw a cute needle book in the shape of a teapot online so I made a similar one for Tara because she loves tea.

The needle book closed looks like a teapot. 

Inside the needle book.

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Small & Extra Large Coin Purse

Extra Large "coin purse". Not exactly for coins, but I used Madame Samm's coin purse pattern from the UR Priceless blog hop (you can find it here on Craftsy) and I enlarged the pattern it to fit the metal frame purse closure I had. The fabric I had in my collection for years and years and there was just enough of this fabric for the front and back. I used a blue fabric I hand dyed last year for the sides and it was the perfect match. I also quilted the exterior.

I chose a small gray print for the lining.

You can see both fabrics in this side view.

I made this coin purse, which is the size Madame Samm designed, in a batik fabric with another hand dyed fabric for the lining. 

Batik fabric coin purse quilted with variegated thread. I made this to give to a friend.

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