Sew Cute Fruit Pouch

I've been influenced by zakka -- the Japanese concept of making pretty, practical items to beautify your everyday life -- since I first started sewing back in 2011. This has led me to spend a lot of time finding books and fabric by Japanese designers, which are full of wonderful inspiration in this area. My latest purchase is Sew Cute Quilts and Gifts by Atsuko Matsuyama. I had already bought a copy of the book from my favorite online shop Sunny Day Supply when I got an email from Lindsay at Zakka Workshop asking if I would be interested in joining the book tour, so the timing was perfect. I'm eternally grateful to Zakka Workshop, which has taken so many wonderful Japanese craft books and translated them into English so that even more people can enjoy them.

For my project, I chose the round fruit pouch, because I had never made a pouch like this before. This is one of the things I love about Japanese sewing books: they always seem to be full of interesting techniques that I haven't tried yet. I was pleased with how easily the pouch came together, including the applique on the front, which is something I don't get the chance to do very often. Thankfully my dear friends Mary and Shawn at Sunny Day Supply had the zipper I needed in stock, and they were kind enough to send me the leaves and flower for applique as well. Be sure to check out their shop this month, because they're going to have all kinds of wonderful supplies for the projects in this book on hand if you need them!

The back of the pouch was supposed to be a four square block, but I fell so completely in love with this new print by my friend Elea Lutz (of which I'll be sharing more with you next month during her fabric tour!), that I just couldn't resist using it all in one piece. I used the tiny floral print from my Date Night collection for the lining and binding on the pouch which gave a nice continuity from the outside to the inside of the project. I love the color and small scale of this print, and I'm going to be so sad when I run out of it!

The hardest part of this project by far was sewing in the zipper by hand. The directions were perfectly clear and helpful, mind you. I'm just not used to putting a zipper in this way, and it took me a few tries to get my stitches right. Once I got in the swing of it, though, it came together nicely.

I'm so pleased with this sweet little pouch, and it feels great to tuck a few more skills under my crafty belt. The book is chock full of adorable projects featuring more techniques that I haven't tried, so I'm probably going to be pulling this title off the shelf now and then in the next year whenever I want to learn something new. If you're on Instagram, be sure to stop by my post to leave a comment so that you can be entered to win a copy of this book for yourself. I really think you'll like this one.

Saying Goodbye

Every year I look forward to the Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition. It's not about the prizes really. It's about the challenge of taking these little leftover pieces of fabric and turning them into something new. Working with scraps is always a welcome reminder that the ragged pieces of my life can become something beautiful if I let them, but I had no idea how personal this year's project would turn out to be.

My husband woke me on Wednesday morning to say that my grandmother's assisted living home had called with the news that Grandma was unresponsive. Paramedics arrived, found that her heart had stopped, and resuscitated her. We ended up sitting beside her in a hospital room where she was unconscious and breathing heavily, not knowing whether she would last the next hour or another six months. Mom and I decided that we would spend the night with her, so I went home to pack a bag. I had decided to try a hexagon project this year with my Umbrella Prints trimmings, and it seemed like a good idea to tuck them into a sewing kit and bring them along to keep my hands busy.

I will always remember April 2, 2014 as one of the longest nights of my life. Mom and I sat together in that dimly lit hospital room, keeping a quiet vigil over my grandmother, and it felt as though we lived through a week instead of just hours. We talked and cried, prayed and listened and cried some more. I read your sweet Instagram comments to my mother, and we were both encouraged (thank you, dear friends). I basted my hexagons, laid them out in a pattern, and spent at least an hour rearranging them over and over again on a little table in the corner of the room. Mom held Grandma's hand, reassuring her now and then that it was okay to let go, that we loved her. Through it all, we saw the signs that death was coming closer. As her seizures gave way to peaceful breathing and her heartbeat began to slow down, we set everything aside to focus on my grandmother, to love and pray her through the doorway between life and death. She drew her last breath shortly after noon on April 3rd.

It took me several days to be able to pick up this project again. The feelings from that night were still so raw that I almost couldn't bear opening my sewing kit and staring them in the face. In the end, I decided that finishing this pillow might just be my own way of finding some healing and closure. I added two hexagons made from Japanese prints to the ones from my trimmings packet -- one including the word "life." It seemed appropriate. The hexagons were sewn together by hand and stitched down onto a background of chocolate brown linen by machine. I added one hexagon to the back of the pillow which reminds me slightly of a sun coming up over the horizon. The pillow now sits on the loveseat in my parents' room, a gift to my dear mother who has been amazing through all of this.

As many of you know, my grandmother moved into a nearby assisted living home this past December and quickly went downhill under the debilitating influence of dementia, but when I started sewing and blogging several years ago, she was one of my biggest cheerleaders. It was Grandma who often slipped some money into my hand when I came to visit her, insisting, "Buy yourself some new fabric, Heidi Jean!" (Have I mentioned that Grandma's first name was Jean?) She loved to send me pictures of quilts, asking if I could make the same thing for her, and she insisted on buying me a subscription to Mollie Makes so that I could keep up on the latest inspiration. I think she probably drove people crazy showing them printouts from my blog and pointing out my quilts which she had displayed all over her house. Her gifts and encouragement helped me keep this blog going, especially in those early days, and I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for her.

Goodbye for a little while, Grandma. We love you.

Directions

I was pretty happy when I found out that Rachel of Stitched in Color had selected me to be one of four participants in her latest Scrap Challenge sponsored by Julie at The Intrepid Thread. The task was to make a project using only this fat eighth bundle and one extra fabric if desired. I signed up to make an EPP mini quilt using hexagons and diamonds, and though I usually head down any number of rabbit trails during the creative process, I was able to stick to my original plan for once.

I knew that I wanted to use large hexagons and pairs of diamonds that pointed in opposite directions (hence the name), but it took me a long time to decide how I wanted to place these three rows together. After much shifting and turning and flipping around, I decided on the layout you see here.

Three of the prints were featured in large hexagons -- these have two and a quarter inch sides. I always love the way that you can draw attention to patterns within a pattern through fussy cutting, and it was fun to choose the parts I wanted to highlight in those hexagons.

For some reason I had a difficult time getting all of the quilting to show up in my photographs, but you can see it best on the back of the quilt. Please pretend that you don't see the wrinkles -- my iron kept trying, but it had trouble making headway on this stubborn piece of fabric. The background and backing of this mini is Robert Kaufman's Essex linen in natural. I thought about binding the quilt in linen as well, but I went with a scrappy binding instead, and I'm so glad that I did. It's nice to have that extra pop of color around the border.

This was the first project I've made using my new EPP case, and I'm completely in love with it. Having an organized place for every step of the process makes it so much easier to pick up a project whenever I have a free moment -- definitely a helpful feature for a mommy on the run!

I made a gift of this mini quilt to my mother tonight, and I'm so happy that she loves it. She and my dad have been incredibly supportive of my sewing. They read my blog faithfully, every post and comment, and are always such an encouragement to me. And did I mention that they just bought me a new sewing machine?! I'll have a post on that soon...

My thanks to Rachel and Julie for the opportunity to play with this lovely bundle of fabric. It was a pleasure indeed.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday.