An Owl Purse

For a while my daughter has been obsessed with owls.. maybe because she was asked to paint on an owl picture in her Montessori.

I was looking on Pinterest for something cute to make for her and came across many simple and cute owl applique prints. And so I decided to make her an owl purse so that she carry her toys when she goes out (which she's very keen on doing these days because I carry one of my own :))

I made a bag pattern that matches the body of an owl..I drew my own pattern but there are so many on Pinterest that can be followed. And with the pattern as base I cut out 2 bag pieces and 2 lining pieces and 1 23" X 4" long piece for the strap along with 2 4"X4" for the patchwork (see pic below). 

I appliqued wings, beak, eyes and eye balls onto the front bag piece.

My machine was not letting me do a zig zag stitch :( :( (dont really know what the problem is) because of which my appliques look unfinished. 

Once the applique was done, I followed instructions on this great website on how to make a simple 1 hour bag (although since I appliqued and did my own version of handle and pockets it took me close to 4 hours to complete the bag). Oh by the way, the link also has an easy pattern to use for cutting the cloth. 

There are 3 pockets in this bag, instead of the usual 1 pocket bags, so that my daughter can keep her dummy mobile phone and visa cards :) 

I also patched up some old fabrics to make the handle look longer :)

Baby Cloth Memory Quilt

This is how it all began! When my daughter was born I had received about 50 new baby clothes as gifts. A few of them could be worn until she was a year old but the rest were all clothes that wouldn't fit her after a month.

Baby clothes are the cutest things ever, which made it extremely difficult for me to chuck or donate. So I saved two sets of clothes - one set (not as cute :P) to try out the memory quilt as it was the first time EVER that I was using the sewing machine, and the other set with all my favourite clothes which I am yet to turn into a quilt.
You could say I bought my Janome just to make this quilt. The SM is perfect for my needs which includes mild to little-heavy quilting, embroidery, general sewing etc. The machine is also relatively small and light weight which makes it very convenient to use :)

Now, back to the quilt .. I cut up squares of the cloth which had cute pictures or prints on it. I tried to make the squares as even as possible but since this was the first time many weren't perfectly squared.
I then arranged the squares according to how I wanted the quilt to look and sewed them all up together.

The last line looks like its plain cloth but there are little prints that say "princess" and "baby" on it :)

Two of our bedspreads were ruined by the washing machine so I cut off a big roll from each and used them for the lining and border (the creamy shade and maroon respectively). I bought some cotton batting from The Square Inch in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai to use for the quilt. 

Since this was my first quilt I had a do a couple of random and uneven stitches all over which did not turn out as expected.. but oh well, it was atleast pink and colourful :)

Also, with some left over clothes I made a triangle banner that says "Sunshine" for my daughter's room.

The pic is unclear because the entire banner wouldn't fit in one shot and the panaroma view wasn't working well either :( 

After seeing this my aunt gave me two cotton materials to make a single quilt for her. This is what that turned out like:

My cousins had recently gifted my aunt an Ipad Air for her 64th birthday so with the remaining cloth (which was significant) I made her an Ipad carry bag with 6 pockets to put the charger, earphones, mobile, wallet etc.. 

The sooper easy tutorial can be found here : Simple tote bag