This and That

Quilting blogland seems a tad subdued, which isn't too surprising really, but still. Honestly, since the big rush of finishing presents and wrapping on Christmas Eve, I haven't been in the sewing room except to clean up the mess I'd made! Event-wise though, there's plenty going on - some wrapping up (no pun intended), and some gearing up for the new year.

The Ruby Star Wrapping Contest comes to a close Sunday night. Each entrant is allowed three entries, so I entered my Simple Drawsting Bag, the Melody-Didn't-Mean-to-Make-It Tote, and my lifesaver as far as wrapping went this Christmas - the Pillowcase Pouch. I was happy to see some of you bloggy friends had entered too.

And while on the topic of sustainable gift-wrap, look at these clever {and darling} gift-tags by amyinuk. Check out the tutorial on her blog, [Amy's] Crafty Shenanigans.

Now on to new challenges for the new year! Saw this today . . .

If you remember, last year's color was Tangerine Tango, and I had great fun creating Tangerisk.

When last year's challenge was announced, I had never even heard of Pantone's Color of the Year. And I definitely was not an 'orange' person. But I must say that after this last year, I love it, and have used it quite a bit. So we'll see if Emerald has the same affect on me. Not sure yet if I'll participate in the challenge or not, but I do want to at least try and incorporate some Emerald in my sewing . . . just because.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of personal challenges I'm looking forward to. One of those is venturing more into foundation paper piecing with Elizabeth of don't call me betsy and her block of the month club.

To start us off, Elizabeth gave us a practice block - and yikes, it's pretty impressive! I'll try to work on mine soon so you can see . . .There's an option of making either 12.5" blocks or 6.5" blocks, and I think I'll go with the 6.5". So there may or may not be a Lucky Stars quilt down the road - maybe some smaller star projects. We'll see.

AND I've been itching for a 'tv project', and I don't always have a quilt laying around to bind. So I up and joined hey porkchop's Woodland Sampler series. Are any of you joining in?

I'm sure there's plenty more goings on. I'd love to hear what you're planning on getting involved in or trying new in the next weeks and months . . .

Ruby Star Wrapping :: Pillowcase Pouch

One thing I love about sew-alongs such as Ruby Star Wrapping {and Zakka!} is seeing what others do with the same pattern. Case in point: seeing Amy/Diary of a Quilter share her Pillowcase Pouches made me want to run right to my sewing room!

When I finally did get there, I started off with a couple of basic pouches. Great idea Amy had to do French seams, and it barely added any time at all, but made a really nice finish. And for families that like to reuse bags (paper or otherwise) year after year, this simple tip will likely prolong their usefulness.

The first thing I learned making the Pillowcase Pouch was to keep in mind the directional nature of the fabric, which you can see illustrated above and below. 

I discovered that for a very flat gift, you really don't need to fold the top over, and with a festive reindeer accent strip, who really even needs a ribbon?

On my last pouch, I used a companion fabric for the top several inches. And since my fabric wasn't quite wide enough for my gift, I decided to add contrasting side insets. . .

then small gussets at the base helped accommodate the thickness of the gift.

So for the little amount of time spent on these handmade wrappings, I got four presents ready to gift, and enjoyed a much needed dose of sewing room time.

Fabric in picture order: from Riley Blake's "Christmas Candy", Kate Spain's "12 days of Christmas", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" by Marisa and Creative Thursday (reindeer from Kate Spain's "Flurry" panel), and lastly, "Brrr!" by Laurie Wisbrun. Linking up with Ruby Star Wrap-Along and the Ruby Star Wrapping Contest.