Little makes

Events pop up and I am often inspired to make something and have little time to meet my deadlines. And two of the events were in August. 

First, Cindy celebrated an important birthday.  I had no idea what to do for her until the day before her birthday.  She recently purchased her first serger—a Bernette Funlock 64.  I made a serger mat with threadcatcher.  The pattern is from allpeoplequilt.com: 

Image from allpeoplequilt.com

I took no photos.  Again, one of those lost in the moment times. But I FaceTimed with Cindy this weekend and asked her to take a couple of shots of it and she happily obliged:

And do you see that I obviously did not make it big enough?  The photo with the instructions shows most of the serger neatly sitting on it and almost fitting it.  Head-smack time. 

A quick and easy project, the only thing that vexed me was sewing the gripper material to the fabric for the top of the mat.  Turns out I only needed to use my 52D foot and all was well, although I used the thickest stuff you can buy in Kroger’s housewares aisle and maybe I should have opted for the thinner stuff.

But it’s done and I’m calling it a win!  And I need to make one of these for me; I have lots of the gripper material left over. 

Next up is a tote bag for Melissa’s birthday—at least I thought of it a week before the event!  I modified a tote bag pattern I used years ago for Christmas gifts to our kids; fast, easy and free.  All I had to purchase for this one was the webbing and an embroidery design.  She loves the Fleur-de-lis symbol and I thought this was very pretty.  It stitched out quickly on a piece of osnaburg fabric and with no issues.  The design is from Embroidery Library.  The body of the tote was made from fat quarters from my stash. 

Both of these projects were quick and satisfying—the best part is that most of the materials came from my stash.  The serger mat project recommends using rip-stop nylon for lining the thread catcher.  That was a quick trip to JoAnn Fabrics and relatively inexpensive.  I’m concentrating on using my stash and that is going well for me at the moment. 

Oh!  And the cinder blocks are in place at our new home.  We picked out doors and hardware and shingles this past week. 

I promise I have returned to the Stitch & B!tch Sampler and will provide an update soon.  In the meantime, go make!