Getting Ready For Quilt Market

In less than 3 days I will be in Houston for the International Quilt Market and I am so excited! I have been working on a few quilt patterns and am looking forward to talking to some people about them. For some reason I have been 'in the zone' as far as ideas, now if I had time to start and finish all my pattern ideas by Thursday that would be great. But alas that will not be happening.

So to get ready for the weekend I decided to make a purse. I have only made little zipper pouches for makeup before (pictured right) so this was my first real bag. I was looking thru Moda Bake Shop (one of my favorite things to do, along with spending hours on the Fat Quarter Shop site planning) and found the Mill House Inn Tote Bag Pattern and knew at once that was MY bag.

Pattern picked out, now for the fabric. I love Hometown and thought the combination of the bright red and soft colors would look great with the scrappiness of the strips. I have come to realize that I am not a scrappy kind of gal, I am much too symmetrical to make many things scrappy. I even drive my quilting friends 'craizee' (pun intended) with trying to plan quilts. So this bag is about as scrappy as it gets for me. I am very proud of myself because I didn't make each side from the center match the other. Don't laugh...it was a big step for me...OK you can laugh a little.

I am not afraid to admit that I was petrified of making a bag. I just couldn't visualize how it would come out...especially the part where you put the inside of the bag on the outside of the bag and flip it thru a seam left open. But I was pleasantly surprise when it worked! So what do you think? I can't wait to walk around Market with this bag!

Then after I finished the bag I had a burst of energy, probably from the endorphins from being so darn excited about the bag :). I knew I needed to make a bag for my IPad while on the trip. I was going to just make a simple zipper pouch like the one I made for my first IPad that now resides with my daughter. Here's a pic of that one. You'll notice I made it from Sunkissed, another Sweetwater line.

But then I thought I would up my game and try to make a matching case. It was easy once I figured out the dimensions. I ended up starting with a 9x11 piece for the bag body and went from there. I used 2" strips instead of the 1.5" strips called for in the bag pattern. I followed the same pattern, except didn't put the shoulder straps on. Here's what I came up with. What do you think?

I am thinking of making a little pouch to put my IPod in. And maybe a wallet too, but we'll see how much time I have. For now I am happy with the pieces I have so far.