Stash Bash Pouches 2014 Edition

You may recall the pouches I sewed up for the 2013 Stash Bash. I made one for a bag swap and two others afterwards. This year I sewed up a medium sized pouch for my secret swap partner Jenn Thurston who runs the Quilted Thimble Cottage fabric shop. I used some fabric leftover from a quilt I made at the 2013 Stash Bash and pieced a little wonky star. The bottom is a gray grunge. 

The stripes wrap around the back and I machine embroidered on both sides so she would forever be reminded of a great weekend. 

I filled the pouch with goodies including chocolate, twizlers, pens, post it notes, twine and washi tape.

It barely fit in the pouch but that is just how it should be.

We got a mini charm pack of Kona solids at the Stash Bash. When I got home I couldn't wait to play with these perfect little squares. I decided to make another open-wide pouch (free Noodlehead tutorial) and send it to Chris (The Stash Bash Goddess Coordinator and puppy rearing queen) as a thank you for once again putting on a stellar retreat. The layout is a simple 4 x 7 grid on the front with a little hand-stitched embroidery. 

The back is made up of a few coordinating prints:

I failed photography 101 as you can see my shadow in most of the pictures. I also don't care one iota.

I just HAD to line the pouch in teapots:

The Stash Bash 2014

Who wants to hear my recap of a sewing retreat from last May? Totally! The 2nd annual Stash Bash was amazing. Recap from the inaugural Stash Bash can be found here. Chris (aka Frecklemama) is my kind of event planner. She made the event so much fun while still being laid back and relaxing. The concept is sewing in a beautiful location...

 

...in a huge room overlooking the lake. And you are with about 50 like-minded people who want nothing but to chat, sew and eat sweets. There were occasional breaks for meals (in between eating sweets) and a fabric shopping trip to the Scarlet Thread was optional. I didn't go to the fabric store this year because I wanted to sew, sew, sew the whole time.

The dining room is right next to the sewing room so there is pretty much no travel time needed to eat and then get back to sewing ASAP. Bonus - you could hold a mock UN meeting here.

There was a large seating arrangement at the far end of the dining area. This was the perfect spot to take a break or do some hand stitching. 

There was also ample floor space for laying out monster quilts like my string-a-hex quilt.

Like last year, I camped out in the back corner with Katie (Katie's Korner) and Elizabeth (Don't Call Me Betsy). We were missing Kim (who had to go and move to California which was tragic) but still managed to have loads of fun and get lots done. I pieced the top of my string-a-hex quilt (above pic), finished two totes (only took a pic of one), caught up on my bee blocks, and started cutting out a courthouse steps quilt. Not bad for a weekend!

Commissioned bag for a family friend.

Churn dash bee blocks.

Chinese lantern style courthouse step quilt.

The swag haul from this year was seriously amped up from last year. But sadly I didn't take a picture of my goodies all together. But we got lots of fabric from Moda, Stash Fabric and elsewhere, an Olfa splash rotary cutter, an Omnigold square ruler, an official The Stash Bash screen printed tee and a lot more things that I don't remember seeing as I am writing this post months later. Everyone won prizes (I think at least twice) lottery style. I got some soak nail polish which lasts forever when you paint your nails. I also got another T-shirt with a sewing machine on it and it says "power tool" underneath. It is neon green and awesome.

More goodies were received via the Secret Agent Swap. I remember it being called the Secret Ninja Swap but apparently I was wrong. Anywho...I got all of these lovelies and more from my secret agent during the course of the weekend:

99.9% sure I am not making it to The Stash Bash in 2015 which makes me very sad, but I will have 4-5 month old triplets and apparently they won't be independent functional members of society yet. Plus, since I moved to St. Louis it is not a quick 3 hour drive to the retreat like it was in years past. As much as I may want a weekend away to relax, sew and catch up with old and new friends it is just not going to happen. Maybe 2016?? 

I'm Headed to The Stash Bash!!

I'll be bashing my stash so hard this weekend at the beautiful Calvin center outside of Atlanta GA with about 50 other fabric hoarders sewing enthusiasts. Follow our progress on instagram at #thestashbash2014. Pictures to come!

Thank you so much Chris (aka Frecklemama) for putting together another special weekend. 

Link to my post on last year's bashitude. 

Le Pouch Tutoriolito

This tutoriolito will teach you how to make two panels for one Noodlehead medium sized open wide pouch. It is not a full fledged tutorial because I cannot take credit for the bag construction. That's all Anna. Also, I didn't really ask her permission for this tutoriolito but I think she will forgive me :) 

The medium sized pouch is a versatile size, but, if you wanted to make a smaller or larger pouch do your own math, geeze!

This is a great use for small scraps. You will basically be constructing a 4 x 8 grid of 2" squares (1.5" finished).

1. Cut fabric

Background-
47 2" squares (21 for the front and 26 for the back). Mine are an assortment of low volume prints and creamy solids. I fussy cut a few. These are in addition to the background fabric that is needed for the star blocks.

Small wonky star - 
Four 2" white/cream background squares
Five 2" square (blue dots).
Cut 4 of the 2" squares diagonally. You should now have 8 right triangles.
Make your wonky points. Reference this wonky star tutorial from Sew Mama Sew if you have never made a wonky star. Each of your point blocks should be 2" square.

Large star-
Eight 2" HSTs (green and background fabric). Make your HSTs any way you like. Here is a good beginner HST tutorial from Connecting Threads. Or if you are feeling really adventurous try the 8-in-1 method.
Four 2" green squares
NOTE: half of the large star will be pieced into the front panel and half in the back.
Base-
Two 3.5" x 12.5" rectangle (dark blue solid, see step 3).

Map out your squares into two 8 x 4 grid like so

 
Front. Make sure the large star is on the right.

Back. Make sure the star is on the left. I chose to have a gradient effect with the blues but you could do anything you like. You could even do another wonky star.

2. Assemble the panels

All seams are 1/4". Sew the squares together in pairs and press either to the side or open (whatever floats your boat) after each step. 

Sew them into 4 patches. Then sew the 4 patches together etc etc.

etc.

Do the same for the back panel and you will have something that looks like this when they are laid down side-by-side:

Oooh, this would be great for a quilt if you supersized it.

3. Attach the base. Sew the 12.5 x 3.5" rectangle to the bottom of the panel.  I designed it so that when the gussets are done most of the base fabric will be on the bottom of the pouch but 1/4" of the base will come up the sides.

4. Baste your panel onto batting and quilt as desired. I chose to topstitch the base onto the main panel and then hand quilt around the stars and add inspiring messages.

I image this little monster saying "I suggest you bash that stash up and whatnot, cherrio"

4. Trim the quilted panels to 9 x 12.5" and follow the Noodlehead instructions to assemble your pouch. 

Tada! I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. If you make a patchwork panel I would love to hear about it!

Le Pouch for The Stash Bash

 or should I say...

I participated in the pouch swap for the Stash Bash. It started with a little drawing

Which turned into some pretty patchwork

That morphed into a gradated panel

 I hand picked some of my favorite prints and low volume fabrics. Lots of the grays are from the gray fabric swap I participated in a few months ago. I fussy cut a few pieces including the needle/texty fabric (you can see it better 2 pictures down).

I lined it with this fabulous coordinating print. Here I go again lining up prints like a boss. This was purely coincidental. I couldn't have lined them up better if I tried.

I'm embroidered the front of the bag with the name of the retreat trying my best to match the colors in the logo. I also hand quilted around the stars. Green thread for the blue star and gray thread for the green star.

The panels were used to make a medium sized Noodlehead open wide pouch. I cut the bottom solid color so that when I made the gussets it would just show. Here is the front:

And the back. You lose the gradient effect once it is a pouch but that is OK with me. I love how my big star wraps around the pouch.

   
Open Wide!

And then I filled it with all sorts of goodies. Sparkly pencils, small notebooks, fabric scraps and CHOCOLATE.

Suzy of Szyhomemaker won my pouch. I have to say she was pretty thrilled :) Let me know if you want more details on the dimensions I used for the panels. I am happy to share.

Stash Bashed

We came, we sewed, we bashed.  Being at The Stash Bash brought back all of my fond camp memories. It was wonderful putting faces/personalities to all the blogs I read. Here is a rundown of the weekend. I will post about the pouch I made for the swap and the projects I worked on during the weekend in another post.

Oh and PS. I joined instagram from the peer pressure. You can find me @sewhungry. 

The bashing took place at the beautiful Calvin center outside of Atlanta GA. This is the view from the right outside the conference room

Kim, Katie and I got there early Friday morning and set up in the back corner with Elizabeth,  Ms. Don't Call me Betsy herself. 

The table to the right is ours. This is the state of the room late Friday night. Kim and I stayed up until 1pm on Friday and until 3:30 on Saturday. We worked right next to the crew of spunky older ladies. They are serious retreat veterans. They even brought their own chairs - which was really smart. We stayed up until 3am talking to them and sewing on Saturday night. One day Kim and I will grow up to be just like them - can't wait.

Sweet pouch swap organized by Ella. So glad to finally meet her btw. I got the polka dotty one in the lower right-hand corner. I'll post later about the one I made.

On Saturday we took a trip down to A Scarlet Thread fabric shop. It was huge and full of the latest fabrics. I bought a little scrap of ants fabric from Michael Miller's Backyard Baby line and some 40wt Aurifil thread. If you are ever in the area, check out this shop. You won't be disappointed.

On Saturday night, Amanda from the craft junkie had a screen printing demo and we got to print on some tote bags. I went with Dr. Who. She really spoke to my inner outer geek.

Here's what I brought home:

Serious swagitude!

Stash bash logic - I came back with more fabric than when I left. This is all the fabric from the swaps and giveaways. There were so many giveaways - everyone won at least one thing.

Thank you so much Chris (aka Frecklemama) for putting together such a special weekend. And thank you to everyone else who was there. I am going through serious withdraw now. Guess I will employ sewing therapy. I can't wait to bash again in 2014.