Latest Finished Projects

I have been really busy sewing Christmas gifts this past month.  This has probably been my most productive season of sewing, but I wish I was faster and could have completed everything in time for Christmas.  I even have one more project to complete for Christmas.  My new goal is to complete Mom's pillows before the end of January.  I have also decided to start and projects I think I want to do for next Christmas in the summer.  We will see how that goes.

My first completion was this pin cushion for Beth's sewing kit.  The design was inspired/copied from Crazy Mom Quilts.  Her post about her pin cushions was here. This was a quick and easy project.  I wish I had quilted the top like the inspiration cushions, but I still think it is a cute pin cushion and I hope Beth really loves using it as she is learning to sew.

Beth's pin cushion

The three grocery bags felt like they would never be completed.  There are more mistakes than I would like to admit and I felt like giving up more than once.  Greg's mom should be receiving them this weekend and I really hope that she likes them.  I bought enough fabric to make 3 more and I am not sure when I will have the fortitude to face this project again.  I love the look of the bags, but I am really wishing I had not used the outdoor fabric.  I think the instructions were wonderful and the design is really great.  I just felt like the fabric was working against me every step of the way.  I may try these again in canvas only since the parts that were only the brown canvas were so much easier compared to the rest.  The tutorial I used can be found here at Sew4Home.  The bags are really big and look super cute with Maggie inside!  Perhaps, the last 3 will go together more smoothly since I learned so many lessons on how to work with the outdoor fabric during the making of these 3 bags.  

Grocery bag

 My final finish was this reversible purse for Deidre.  This bag came together really quickly and was much easier than I thought it would be.  It was easy enough that I am pretty sure I will probably be making this bag again.  The tutorial I used was posted on Sew Mama Sew.  The pattern is from a book called the Bag Making Bible and I was impressed with this pattern enough that I think I would like to purchase the book to see what the other projects included are.  It also looks like the book will help me to learn how to make my own bag patterns.  The only change I made to the original pattern is that I covered two buttons and sewed them together onto both sides of the bag instead of having one button on a safety pin that can be moved to either side.

Exterior of purse

The striped side of the bag is the one I made on the outside and up close it looks better, but I think the inside looks good enough that Deidre would be able to use it as well as long as no one looks closesly at the stitches.  I need to work on my thread and bobbin tension on this bag next time I attempt it so that the inside looks good as well.  I also think I would want to figure out how to make pockets for this bag as well.

Interior of purse

Now I need to work on the pillow cases for Mom.  Since that involves piecing, I am really looking forward to a project that I am more comfortable with.  Thank you for being so patient with me, Mom!  I hope to finish those quickly for you.