Spring Fling! And Open Wide Pouches

I have been diligently working to meet my swap deadlines this weekend. I have two swaps going out in the mail this week plus a birthday club package. I have the swaps done so now I can work on the birthday. First up here is my Spring Fling Mini Swap mini quilt.

Spring Fling Mini designed, pieced and quilted by Anita LaHay of Daydreams of Quilts.

I was inspired by a photo I saw on Pinterest of a pillow cover. It had a white background and bright circular flowers appliqued on it with a sun and a bird. My mini has various squares pieced together to make up the background. They have two commonalities; they are all low volume and they all have polka dot patterns on them. Then I traced various circles onto "Steam A Seam" fusible web. I used a roll of duct tape, a circular template used for planning floor plans in interior design and plantings in landscaping that has many different circles on it and a glass from my kitchen. I fused those circles onto bright coloured charm squares and free handed my stems. The straighter stems were drawn with a ruler. I quilted and appliqued at the same time after I fused everything in place. I used mono filament thread because it would have been too much to change threads for each colour in this quilt.

This is my first finish from my Q2 Finish Along goals list.

This is the back of the quilt. I bought this fabric at IKEA last summer and it is perfect for the spring theme. The binding fabric is a lime green and turquoise stripe from my stash. I put corner tabs on for hanging.

I made this Open Wide Pouch (free tutorial by Noodlehead) as a swap extra. I used zakka tape for the pull tab. It has a ballerina on it that you can't see in this shot. I made the zipper pull with jewelry findings. (Glass ring, silver jump ring and silver clasp.) For the embroidery I used patterns in the Spring and Easter section of Aimee Ray's book "Doodle Stitching - The Holiday Motif Collection") The pouch is stuffed with spring and flower themed extras.

I have an Open Wide Pouch swap going out this week too. My partner had a flying geese bag in her inspiration mosaic. It looked like it was paper pieced. I am pretty accurate with normally piecing flying geese now so I made this panel in an evening. She likes Rashida Coleman Hale of Cotton + Steel so that inspired the fabric choices. I made the tab with zakka tape again and the zipper pull is again made with jewelry findings as above.

Here are my two pouches sitting atop my red and green pepper seedlings. The tomato seedlings in the background were touching the top of their mini greenhouses so the lids are off now.

Remember a couple of months ago I said I found these pouches hard? They are so easy for me now. In fact I just made up my own size for the Spring Fling one. Practice pays off! :)

I hope you are enjoying your spring (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere) and getting inspired by the season! Thanks for visiting today.