It's a bird, it's a plane!

No, it's.....SUPERTOTE!!!

My lovely assistant, Kate, is modelling her fabulous new Supertote. I made this for the mother of a friend who happens to live in the town where they are filming the new Superman movie. She works on the main street where they will be doing much of the filming, so I thought she needed a Supertote to show her Supersupport. I made the little yellow band to mimic Superman's yellow belt.
The inside has pockets, made from the Superman comic book material, all the way around and a key fog to boot.

I fussy cut out an 'S' from the comic book material for the button.

 To add to the fun and excitement of having a movie filmed in your small town, Kevin Costner is apparently playing Superman's dad!

My other finished project this week was an all Minky graduation quilt. The young lady in question Loves, with a capitol L, bright colors and all things Minky. I saw this kit and knew it was perfect for her to take to college. She's going to attend the University of Michigan, where it can get rather chilly, so I used Thinsulate batting in between the Minky layers. It was a little bit difficult to quilt due to the puffiness of the regular Minky quilt top, the Thinsulate batting and the super fluffy Curly Minky on the back. I quilted it with overlapping wavy strands, kind of like a DNA model.

I tried to bind it in Minky, but it did not go well at all. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how badly the binding was going until I was 3/4 of the way done! For the first time in my quilting life, I had to cut the binding off! It was horrifying, I have to tell you. I wasted a whole yard of Minky in the binding fiasco. Luckily I had the perfect cotton fabric in my stash. The black with hot pink polka dots worked out wonderfully.

It makes you want to pet the quilt, doesn't it? The graduate was so thrilled. Several of her friends also gushed over it. It's pretty gratifying to have some 17 year old approve of what you do, since they are so often not approving of adults' taste.

I asked the graduate if she knew it would be a quilt, and she said "No, but I knew it would be something you made so it would be awesome!" That made it all worthwhile.
May all of your handmade goods be just as appreciated,
Vicki

Industriusness

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. I've been having a great time. I had 2 weeks off of work for the holidays, and got a lot and yet nothing done at the same time! I had really, really wanted to clean out my basement and make my sewing cave into a real honest to goodness studio. but that didn't happen.
I did get some sewing done though. I made this mini wall hanging:

The applique in the middle and the corner circles are wool. I appliqued it with fusible web (steam a seam lite, 2) and then machine button hole stitched it down. I used LakeHouse fabrics for the rest. It totally went together in no time.


It's from the book 'Pennies from Heaven' by Gretchen Gibbons.

It's a really nice book with great ideas. I like mixing fabric and wool for two reasons, 1) wool is pricey and 2) I hate hand work and it's easier to applique by machine on fabric.

This next project is DiscoJen's birthday present, so if you are DiscoJen, don't look any further until after your birthday!

DiscoJen travels quite a bit w/the kids, so I made her a Smarty Girl Bag from the Heather Bailey pattern, but with a few modifications to make traveling w/the chillens easier.

It has a nice long handle, so it can go across your front, crucial for travel.
I added a poofy divider on the inside, as well as several pockets. The divider is for her e-reader thingy. I put 2 layers of fusible fleece into the divider to protect the reader thingy and it's screen. They other side of the divider is for general stuff, and has 6 pockets. (By general stuff, I mean snacks.)

I also added tall pockets on both the front and back, perfect for easy access to tickets and passports for 3 people! I used different colors on the pocket interiors so that if she's harried, she might remember what color the pocket was that she put the thing in that she's looking for.

I picked the Lila Tueller 'Spirit' fabric from Moda because it's busy enough that hopefully it will hide travel dirt!
Last night I finished the first of 8 rows for my Sew Mod group's row exchange. We each provided a fat quarter to each person in the group, then we were given a chart w/different blocks on it. We use the fabric provided and the block assigned to that person and make a row for them. They are due by February, so I need to get a move on!
Lorrie gave us all Halloween fabric, which is totally awesome! I have pinwheels for her, so I made applique pinwheels out of Halloween motifs.




Lorrie provided the yellow bat fabric. I used some of the Moda 'Haunted Mansion' and 'Spooktacular' by Sanae and Riley Blake's 'Boo to You' for finish up the row.
I was so excited to get the row together that I forgot to sew the appliques down, so I'll be working on that today. Hopefully I can get another row or two done today, on my last day off. Sigh.