The Cocktail Kit(ty) Purse

A few weeks ago, I found out by surprise that an article I had submitted to Australian Patchwork and Quilting AGES ago (which I thought had been rejected) had been published. It was surprising that it was a surprise because I'm usually in close contact with Louise at the magazine when there's an article in the offing. I emailed Louise to ask what was going on.  To cut a long story short, Louise's mum (who joked that Louise had her dream job as she was a quilter and Louise isn't) has been in and out of hospital with cancer for a long time, and Louise was in and out of the office accordingly. We had an email catchup, and Louise sent me a photo of her new kitty. Now I'm not a cat lover (I find they are very tough unless you slow-cook them) but even I have to confess that this is a cat who could give bat-dog a run for her money... Batdog and spider cat... Unstoppable.

I was so distracted by the kitty pics that I missed Louise's mention that the doctors had told her family they should go into the hospital that evening to see her mum... Or I missed the significance of that. About a week later, I heard that Louise had lost her mum.

What do you say in those situations? Louise is in Sydney and I am in Perth (which is 2045 miles, or roughly the distance from LA to Wisconsin for my American readers) and although we have never met, we have already said that we would totally go out for drinks if it weren't for the distance. So the best I could manage was "sending you hugs and cocktails." Louise replied, "less hugs, more cocktails".  How do you send a cocktail that distance?

Sadly, I'd already given this block to Janine and had NO MORE cats with cocktails fabric. I put a call on Quilt Club Australia and funnily enough, Cat(herine) (who is in WA and has just started her own long-arm business called Catty Lil Sew-n-sew) had a piece she gave me. So I now had a cat with a cocktail, but what was I going to do with it?

Sara had sent me another pattern - not to test this time, just because she is so sweet. This pattern was for a trio of wallets - a basic, an intermediate, and an advanced. I decided to go with the intermediate one which has a space for a phone to fit on the back. The Ghastlies' cat fit perfectly.

The inside of the wallet features numerous credit card slots. I left some open for notes.

Halfway through, I realised there was no space for coins, so I added a little coin purse to the front of the wallet.  I fussy cut the characters (obviously) but the closures are scraps of Ghastlies fabric. One scrap turned out to be the crotch area of one of the male characters (unintentional) but I'd ironed it on to the interfacing before I noticed. So I decided that would be the back of a closure and no one would ever notice. Then I accidentally sewed it the wrong way on. Oops...

Here's the outside in its full glory below.

My parents informed me that it is unlucky to give a wallet as a gift without money in it, so I'm going to have to send cocktail money over. Which I am going to have to insist Louise spends on a cocktail to cheer herself up, so that makes this Louise's Cocktail Kitty.

 Which kicked my creative brain into action... I have to explain that Louise seems to have a similarly devious sense of humour to me before we go any further.

There's a fine cotton hankerchief from Japan ("In case you are a messy drunk") and a note on the interior cat fabric ("Extra kitties in case you get rat-faced") and I popped a couple of asprin in the front pocket ("for the morning after").

So this will be winging has now winged its way to Sydney. I'll wait till the end of the week to share and hope it's there by then, as Louise occasionally stalks my blog. I have NO idea whether she will like it and I have no idea whether she's 21 or 71 but I hope this at least brings a bit of happiness on a day that it is needed. :)
Louise loved it. She said it made her laugh and cry and the zipper on her old purse broke last week and she had to cut it open and has been carrying it around in a state of disgrace ever since. She says thank you to Cat and Sara for their contribution. And she's 26.... :)
I've missed TGIFF but will save it up and link next Friday...


PS. You can buy Sara's pattern here.

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A little revenge sewing

Louise, if you are reading this you are heading STRAIGHT FOR THE TEMPLE YOUNG LADY!
I have a finish which I sent to my friend Louise in Sydney. It hasn't got there yet and she promised she wouldn't look at my blog, but I decided to remove the post anyway, and show you a little revenge sewing...

Since I got this little monster, she has eaten 5 pairs of shoes, including my flip-flops

 and my favourite work shoes..

 She's also eaten a charm pack and her 'puppy and beginner dog training notes'. Sigh. Enfant terrible.

And of course, who could forget the glitter? 

Well, the weather is getting colder here and Scarlett's coat is still fairly thin, so she needed a winter coat. I had some green fleece that I bought to make a dragon softy with (it didn't happen) but... well, an idea popped into my head for a little revenge... Meet my monster...

Hahahaha, I laugh every time I see her in it. She glared at me balefully for about half an hour then seemed to forget about it. Well, it amuses me and keeps her warm - win-win!!!


Linking up with TGIFF which is on at MsMidge's.

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How simply Ghastly dah-ling!

Here is what I had been waiting to show you.... Sara of SewSweetness's Lillium laptop bag. I am SOOOO in love with this bag and this pattern and I have to say, it's created a sensation everywhere I have taken it. Three people have tried to steal it. No, I am not exaggerating.

Do you like it dah-ling?


What I can't show you is how this feels. I used several new fabrics to me. Essex linen that I picked up in Quiltique near Vegas with Katy in October (love love love), some Michael Miller Fairy Frost in silver that I picked up locally, a silver and black FQ (not sure what line) and Annie's Soft 'n' Stable which is a foam-like interfacing. It is lovely to sew through, despite its thickness, and the feel of the linen over the soft and stable is amazing. It gives the bag a really solid and professional feel.
Oh, and of course, there are some Alexander Henry Ghastlies characters thrown in.

Here's a look at the back.

There is a zipper pocket in the back of the bag. It's the first time I've put in a zipper this way, but Sara's instructions made it so easy. That's what I love about her patterns. I always learn something. Or several things. For example, putting in sliders for strap extension. 

 And the nifty trick for doing those rounded corners. I was blown away.

The inside has a padded divider and the front, back and bottom have foam inserts sewn into the lining to protect the contents of the bag. The small size fit my Macbook pro 13"in, with the charger, plus my ipad and Kindle. What more could a girl want?!

After doing this, I immediately hit Sara's pattern site for her camera bag which I missed out on pattern testing, but it's definitely going to happen!

You can find the pattern here.

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Claiming

For goodness sake... Why does all this technology stuff keep changing? Google reader going, I tried Feedly without much success so over to Blogloving it is... But they make you do this silly claiming thing. So ignore this post but Follow my blog with Bloglovin

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Traversing some Terrain

Isn't it satisfying when you go from this:

 to this ...

 To this...

And you can START to see what the finished product will look like?

I have shamelessly borrowed some of the quilting design from Green Fairy Quilts but other bits I have dreamed up (or am still dreaming up) myself. I'm quilting my little heart out. It's not going to win any awards, but I love it, and it's going to be my best to date... It's just WORKING. :)

In non-sewing news, a bottle of glitter fell off the shelf in my sewing room, unnoticed by me... Scarlett has been renamed Sparkles and is passing disco-balls.

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Abdicating...

Like Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands, I am abdicating my rule of TGIFF this week to my good buddy McKenna, over at Textile Diva. I actually do have a finish. But I can't - no, I WON'T - show you. "WHY won't you show us Laura?!" I hear you cry plaintively.

1) It's so freaking fantabulously amazing that you will immediately throw down your rotary cutter and bawl into your pins, because you will despair of ever producing anything quite this fantastic. And I don't want you to do that today.

2) Sara at SewSweetness is not QUITE ready to release the pattern that I have been testing that has resulted in this awe-inspiring piece of quilted brilliance. She did say I could show it, but on the off-chance that 1) above doesn't happen, or that you get over your despair and decide that YES, you WILL attempt to emulate my sheer brilliance, you will want to buy the pattern IMMEDIATELY and will plunge back into despair if you can't, and I don't want to be responsible for the consequences. 

Plus Sara is trying to make her living selling her lovely patterns and it's better for her if I wait, so waiting I am.

Now head on over to Textile Diva and check out McKenna's finish to link up to TGIFF or check out the other finishes!

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Spanish WIPS

I made good progress on several projects on retreat. As we were having tapas Saturday night, I kinda went with a Spanish theme - well, Kate Spain fabrics at least!

I finished the Terrain top - it just required borders. I decided to go with a dark blue tone-on-tone border - it really makes the rest of the quilt pop!

I tackled my long-neglected Good Fortune blocks

and came up with half a top... I have a bit of an idea where this is going but you will have to wait and see...

I had some time to get into Elizabeth Hartman's Craftsy class and put together a low volume mini quilt top from layer cake squares, including some Good Fortune.

 Let me tell you, putting together the puzzle pieces after a few drinks... was quite time consuming to say the least!

I am not sure what this is going to become. It's a bit small and an awkward size, so I will have to have a think... It may turn into a wall hanging if I don't come up with a better plan. Any thoughts?? Maybe two nice cushion covers?

And this is NOT Kate Spain themed, but I have my Mondrian top basted and under the machine - finally!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced - gosh it feels good to have made some progress!

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