My 2013 Finishes

 Having two surgeries this summer sure affected my sewing time.  After I made this mosaic, I realized a lot of my garmet sewing was used immediately upon completion (mainly swimming suits and volleyball shorts) so at least everything is getting used.

Nesting Fabric Bowls Owl Style

 I made 1 nine inch bowl, 3 five inch bowls, and 2 four inch bowls for my owl theme classroom.  I also like to think about common objects to help with size, so I took a picture of each size I made with an everyday object.  The Pepsi can is near the 4 inch bowl and the Starbucks are next to the five inch bowl.

 This is a great stashbusting project too.  It doesn't use a lot of fabric for the feature print, while the lining and solid panels do use up more fabric. 

This pattern is from acuppaandacatchup.com and is called fabric nesting bowls. 

Secret Tote Bag Swap

I finished my bag for the secret tote bag swap.  I had started cutting it out almost a month ago.  Then, I had two surgeries which put me behind schedule.  I missread parts of the directions and miscut several pieces.  All in all, I know the bag is not perfect, and I like to be a perfectionist, but I decided this bag is pretty (hopefully my partner thinks so too), structually sound (I zig zagged a lot), and can hold lots of stuff.  The lining is the part that I dislike the most, and it just isn't as neat as I would have liked it to turn out.  I think my favorite part of this bag is the handles.  I love how sturdy they feel.

Pepper Potholder (aka coaster) from Zakka Style Book

 I've particpated in enough coaster swaps that I really didn't need any more coasters, so I decided to also make a potholder (hotpad).  I made my pepper but instead of using cotton for the backing, I used lightweight fusable interfacing.  The linen that I used as the background is my absolute favorite, and I maybe have enough for one more potholder.  I used twill tape for the stem and  upholstery thread for the handstitching.  The brown binding was also a scrap I had on hand.  I used one layer of warm and natural batting and one layer of thermobright in the potholder.  The backing is a home dec scrap with browna and green stripes.

2012 Finishes

 I keep seeing other bloggers looking over their previous year and thinking that is kind of neat, but I don't have enough to put together.  I looked through my flickr photstream and was quite amazed at my finishes and the new things that I tried.  Hopefully, I can remember to do this each year.

Friendship Bag

I'm making this bag as part of a friendship bag swap.  I have the bag finished; now I have the next couple of weeks to work on goodies to put inside the bag.  I have a few ideas, but I'm not positive what else is going in . . . yet.

Christmas Tree Pants

 I wanted to try out the Happy Zombie's pattern for Christmas tree pants and overall I'm pretty happy with it.  I made this for my parents and wanted to go with more traditional Christmas colors for them.  I did some free motion quilting on here as well.