When the weather turns cold, I frequently want more cover at night than does my husband, and my usual solution is a “half width” quilt that fits on just my side of the bed. I’ve had this one for years

but I decided to make a new one after seeing Tara Faughnan’s Traverse quilt. Of course I didn’t do it her way–some of her designs are way too fiddly for my taste. Instead, I combined some of her ideas with some ideas from Brenda Gael Smith’s Dreamlines class and designed my own.

Both quilts are backed with polyester fleece and have no batting, so they are pliable and cuddly. They are preferred by the grandkids because of this. I find them more comfortable for naps than regular quilts as well.

Also, a friend visited recently and made this quilt top from Tim Holtz’s pattern “Curious By Nature”. The pattern is free on the Free Spirit website. The fabric she used is mostly a Zen Chic collection from Moda, though the medium blue is from Libs Elliot’s Glazed collection.

What interesting quilt patterns or examples have you found lately? I’m always looking for something different.

I see a lot of posts about making pouches, but how many can a person use? Or a person’s friends? However, one of my friends wanted to learn how to get a zipper in a pouch and cover the ends with fabric. SO…

I’ve made this pyramid pouch before in several sizes; it’s quick and easy but the zipper ends aren’t “covered” the way she wanted them per the pattern. You probably can see on the smaller one that I experimented with covering the ends.

Here’s the link for the free pyramid pattern: https://www.loganberryhandmade.com/pyramid-pouch-sewing-tutorial/

I recommend this pouch. It’s quick, easy, and impressive to those who don’t know how you did it–ha! The larger one above is 12″ tall and I use it as re-cyclable gift wrap for the family.

I found a tutorial on how to cover zipper ends and it’s the same as the instructions on a pattern I bought a while back. I’m having trouble with it, but that may be because the pyramid bag was designed to NOT have the zipper ends covered. Here’s the link. Let me know how it works for you.

A more traditional pouch, also with a free pattern, is Noodlehead’s Open Wide Pouch, shown above. This one was a lot more work than the pyramid bag, and still wasn’t designed for covered zipper ends. I’ve made a bunch of Noodlehead’s patterns and they are well written. These bags came out just fine, and the free pattern offers multiple size options.

Finally…

I made some little pods for friends. Pattern is Sweetpea Pods, available here

These little pouches are my all-time favorite because they’re so clever and cute. The pattern isn’t free, but you can buy it here.

What’s your favorite pouch pattern?

Hooray! I’m going on a quilting retreat with friends! Here are a few of the things I have to take:

1. Projects organized in boxes. I take one more than I think I’ll need, just in case I “get ahead of myself”.
2. Chocolate. Because!
3. A little lamp, because you never know what the lighting will be like. I have multiples of these, but probably will take the “daylight” one I got at a guild sale last year.
4. Things I’m through with that other people might want, especially books and patterns. The best part is that I never bring any back with me; one of the ladies takes any leftovers on to another group!
5. A flannel-backed plastic tablecloth to use as a “design wall”, even if I have to lay it out on a bed. If I have a partially-finished project when it’s time to leave, I just roll it up in the tablecloth and it’s ready to go again when I get home!
6. And a little cash “just in case” we go to a quilt shop or two!

Of course, these are just my projects and extras. Karen (Just Get It Done Quilts) has a more comprehensive “Quilting Travel Kit Packing List” of things she keeps ready to go on a moment’s notice! I don’t have enough duplicate tools to do that, but I get the point–no chance of leaving anything behind.

What do you like to take to a retreat that Karen and I might not have included?

I got out the rest of the “studies” from Tara Faughnan’s Block Studies class and put them up on the design wall to consider.

The coral and grey composition didn’t fit in with the others, so I layered and basted it, then practiced some quilting. As you can see, I ran out of steam before it was all quilted. It was just for practice, so there was no rule saying I had to finish!

Then I removed some more blocks that didn’t play well with others, and I’m thinking about what (if anything) to do with the ones left on the board. They may need to go to my friend who wanted orphan blocks…we’ll see.

In other news, I finally did my part of the quilting and put the binding on this quilt.

Succulents in Pots, 52″ x 61″

“My part” of the quilting didn’t amount to much! A friend outlined the cacti and pots and did some very nice leaves on the rest of it. I just put a little design on each pot–ha!

And by the way, this was made from a very OLD paper piecing pattern from a magazine, so if you want to make something similar you’ll have to draft your own pattern. Even if I could find the magazine again (oops–lost it), you probably couldn’t locate a copy!

I’m trying to get all the small quilts finished up since October is the next delivery for Ronald McDonald House. That means it’s time to quit procrastinating and start binding! So I guess the fooling around with the leftover Tara blocks was avoiding binding…

And what are you procrastinating about?