Impromptu Birthday Gift

 

I take a deep water exercise class at the YMCA, one of the ladies was turning 65 and this was the gift I made.  Most don't know that I sew and sew A LOT, so this received lots of raves.  The theme of the gift was to do something 65-ish, so my take was to sew on 65 buttons to this jean cosmetic pouch.

 

I have loads of buttons, it was fun counting and re-counting the buttons to make sure I got it right, I used red and white buttons, and lined it in a red and white polka-dot.  I think start to finish, including hand sewing 65 buttons was about 2 hours.  I used hand quilting thread to secure the buttons so I could do less hand sewing with a  stronger thread.

New Items From the Scrap Basket

 

I have spent some time going through my mountain of scraps and making a few pieced items.  Before Valentines day I made a bunch of these heart coin purses.  And below a few houses with raw edge applique and an assortment of embellishments.



 

 

The piles started like this, sorted by colors, I spent about two days ironing and sorting by size, it looks so ready to go when done, and kind of a relief to do some sorting and tossing. 

 

I started with the hearts and just sewed like colors then cut into my heart shape.  I dropped these off at Yellow Door before Valentines, but I like them so much I added a few to my etsy shop, and plan to offer them for the year. 

 

For the houses, I sort of played around with the size and made the zipper at the top of the roof.  A variety of windows, doors and fun shapes go into each one.  I used rick rack, buttons, ribbon flowers and some random quilting to highlight each house. 

 

 

 

I really like these and will continue to make house zip purses in vary shapes and sizes.  I have a few variations and shapes I will be adding through 2014.