Thimbleweed Quilters Outdoor Quilt Show

Yesterday I spent the day at the Thimbleweed Quilters Outdoor Quilt Show. The winds blew a bit and we had a few drops of rain, but it turned out to be a perfect day for a quilt show. It wasn't too hot or cold. We even had some entertainment with 3 women playing harps, which sounded lovely. Thanks to Tara for playing her harp and inviting her 2 friends to accompany her. There were so many beautiful quilts on display in all patterns, colors and sizes. Please head over to my Flickr album to see the entire show. Here are just a few of my favorites:

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Koi Fish Quilted Dresser Topper

My husband requested that I make him a topper for his dresser. He wanted something Asian looking and simple. I found this piece of Koi Fish fabric and added some patchwork squares to the sides. I quilted it and added the binding and it now resides on top of his dresser.

I quilted the koi fish with bubbles (or pebbles).

A simple square patchwork side border and diagonal quilting through the squares.

Here it is on top of his dresser.

The colors work nicely with this old dresser.

I used an Asian fabric on the back too.

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Another Bloom Block Done

Another Bloom block is finished. I love this one with the little heart petals!

Southwest Decoratives had all their fat quarters on sale for Cinco de Mayo last Thursday. Only $2 per fat quarter! I bought 5 fat quarters, so I was good! Of course I only bought batiks! Aren't they pretty?

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Lacy Knit Wool Scarf

I had one skein of yarn that was a Blue-Faced Leicester wool yarn. I had never knit with this type of wool yarn before. It is nice and soft. I decided to knit this lacy scarf from a pattern I had on one of those calendar pages that has a different knit pattern for each day of the year. It's not long enough to wrap around in a loop, but the pattern photo shows it being worn at the side of the neck with a brooch to hold it in place. I love how it turned out and it was an easy pattern to knit too.

If my neck was a skinny as this tree branch, I could wrap the scarf to wear it, lol! But the scarf will need a brooch to hold it in place.

I love the blues and greens of this variegated yarn.

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Marilyn Patchwork Cosmetic Zippered Pouch

I made the Marilyn Cosmetic Patchwork version of this zippered pouch by Imazz Patterns. I have so many scraps that I made both the front and back of this pouch in patchwork. It's a nice size. You can add an inside pocket if you want to, but I decided not to add any pockets on this one. You can also add a wrist strap if you want to. The pattern comes with the patchwork version as a bonus, plus the instructions to make the Marilyn with all one fabric or 2 fabrics. It's a nice size bag for cosmetics and more. You can find Imazz Patterns on Etsy or Craftsy.

This is a fast and easy bag to make too!

Here is the patchwork on one side of the bag.

I used a canvas home decor print for the bottom of the bag.

Here is the other side of the bag with more patchwork. I used my batik scraps for both sides.

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Fabric Bowl Re-Do

I made a couple of fabric coiled bowls last year using some rather ugly fabric. The bowls looked better than the fabric by itself, but they were still ugly. So I decided to paint the bowls and give them a new life. After painting I added some touches of metallic paint to highlight them a bit. The paint made them much stiffer feeling too, since I used acrylic paint. The colorful bowl, I painted over using a turquoise fabric paint, so that the fabrics showed through, but gave the bowl a more blended together look. That bowl retained it's softer feel using the fabric paint.

Painted blue with metallic paint highlights. The acrylic paint stiffened the bowl.

This bowl has a different shape than the first bowl, but I painted it the same way.

Here is the original bowl I made in the ugly fabric.

This is the other original bowl I made in the ugly fabric. I like them better painted.

I used a turquoise fabric paint on this bowl and it retained the fabric feel to the bowl. I like how using this paint blended the colors together to give it more continuity.

Here is the original fabric bowl in the scrappy fabrics. I think painting this bowl turquoise helped to bring the colors together better.

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Fine & Dandy Zipper Pouch

I made a zippered pouch by a new bag designer, Liz Schaffner of Moments blog. Liz has been designing bags of her own after having been a bag tester for several designers. I will be testing one of Liz's designs this month once she has it ready to test. In the meanwhile, I made her Fine & Dandy Zipper Pouch last night. I had planned on cutting it out and sewing it today, but I just was on a roll and kept sewing, lol! I learned a great tip and plan on using Liz's method on future bags that I make from now on. I enjoyed making the large version of this bag. The pattern includes both a small and a large size, and that is really nice to have choices.

Here is the large size Fine & Dandy Zipper Pouch that I made:

Funny, now that I see the photos, I can see the fabric I chose looks like a 9-patch quilt block. I didn't even notice that before. I guess I was too close to it, lol.

My knitting stuff fits inside nicely. I have knitting needles, scissors, skein of yarn, eyeglasses in the felt case, and a few things in the pockets that you can't see. Still lots of room left.

I made a zipper pull with beads and a peace sign in lime green!

The empty inside. There are slip pockets and pleated pockets. a total of 16 pockets to hold whatever you want. Plus an optional swivel hook to hook your keys or whatever you want to have quick access to.

The side view.

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