It's My Day on the April Showers Blog Hop

 

Welcome to our April blog hop. This month's challenge is showers...

 late snow showers, rain showers, baby showers, wedding showers.

 What do you like to shower everyone with?

I love "By Annie" patterns. She designs the cutest and most usable bags on the planet!

(Watching her videos, makes putting them together so easy)

Definitely something you can shower anyone with, for any occasion.

It started with "A Place for Everything" a few years ago, with this bag I made for my traveling sewing supplies.

It's a super cool bag, that I learned a lot by making.

Then...when she updated and improved the pattern with "A Place for Everything 2.0", with new handles, a carrying strap, and new pockets, and I found this awesome "Minne Mouse" fabric, I  knew just what I was going to do!

This is for my little "Sweet Pea".  I've been saving it until she was old enough to enjoy it and next month it's going to her, on her 4th birthday! It will give her lots of room to bring her special toys back and forth to Nana's house.

Next came "Pack It In", that was originally designed as storage bags for your suitcase. But when I found these awesome designs at "Designs by JuJu", I had a different vision.
Instead of mesh fronts, I chose to make solid fronts and put pockets on them. I added mesh pockets on the inside. That's the fun part of the patterns. Everything is interchangeable and adjustable and she shares lots of tips for adapting pattern to each other.

I knew I was going to make all 3 sizes for project bags... and a some of my quilty friends had birthdays!

So, instead of quilting each piece individually, I loaded a few yards of fabric on my longarm with backing and a head liner fabric as a batting and quilted away. It worked like a dream and I was actually able to get more bags than I had expected out of it, with just enough left over, to cut a top and bottom for a "bonus" bag. I found a contrasting fabric for the sides and added a pocket with my favorite saying of all. 

"A Fat Quarter is not a Body Part!!!

So, I showered my quilty friends, with bags and

cards that are from "Design by JuJu" as well.

What can I say? You'll be able to pick us out from the crowd at the next quilt retreat!

Now you know my first love is applique...

So when I found this guy, by Googling April Showers Free Clipart...

I could hardly wait to bring him to life.

Be it that sweet bear face, or these mice, which would have me running and screaming 

if they were on me, but...

...they screamed "April Showers" to me!

So there you have it...my very (long wind-ed) April Showers.

Please visit my fellow blogger today and see what was "Raining on their Parade" this showery month!

Monday April 22

MooseStashQuilting (you're here)

Words&Stitches

Quilting Gail
Quilt Doodle Designs

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Leave them a sweet comment, when you visit. We all love hearing from our quilting friends!

It really makes our day!

The complete schedule can be found HERE

and

All the projects from this hop will be added daily to our Pinterest board HERE

 til next time...

 Keep on Stitchin'

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A Little Duffle Do It

If you haven't surfed thru the Connecting Threads website lately, you will find some fabulous patterns you can pay and download immediately. This is one of my favorites. A Little Duffle Do It. For $4, you too, can have your own pattern for these cuties. I love taking a little something when I travel for the people who have to tolerate me, and this is perfect and fast. Everyone needs something to carry things in, it's just right for makeup bags or any kind of sewing supplies me might need to carry. A couple of fat quarters and a zipper and your on your way. These are the large size, and there are 3 sizes offered in the same pattern. Click HERE for the magic carpet ride over to this great pattern. You might want to check out all the other wonderful patterns while your there, too!

Since I am leaving on a jet plane this week, to help my best friend (46 years, yikes!!) with a wedding in her family, I decided to make myself a little duffle and a matching curling iron carrier. My old one, had long since seen better days.

In the middle of the night the idea fairy struck (darn her for interrupting my sleep) and her focus seemed to be dealing with the 1 quart ziploc bags that you are required to have for your liquids when you travel now. Of course, I had to get up out of bed and hit my sewing room early today. I took a ziploc and used the measurements to make one out of a heavier clear plastic.  On my last trip to Anchorage, as I was pulling my liquids out of my bag, the top portion tore off the bag, and there I stood with the zipper part of the bag in my hand. Thanks goodness the TSA agents thought it was funny and allowed me to take things on, since they do not have bags available for us anymore. So if this works out well with the TSA, and it should, since it "is" the exact measurement of a 1 quart bag, I will post a tutorial for making your own.
                                          Till then happy stitchin'

Working on gifts

I have spent the past few weeks working away at getting some gifts finished up. Birthday quilts, baby quilts, and this great tote bag for a friend. I ran across the pattern for the Professional Tote on the Stashbusters website. One of the gals raved over the bag. A quick trip to my quilt shop turned up the pattern and the rest is history. This tote, if you haven't seen it, is probably the best bag I have ever had. If your like me, you have more bags than you'll use in a life time. This one beats them all hands down. I made my first one just before my trip to Alaska in June and was blown away at how great it was to travel with. There are so many pockets in it that I was able to carry on a complete overnight supply of clothes, and etc. I always travel with things to get me thru a day or two. It's my just in case factor, if the airlines loose a bag. With room for water bottles on the sides and so many zippered compartments it's just perfect. As for the sewing, the directions are very clear and other than lots of pieces, nothing was hard to do at all. All the seams are finished when your done and there is a great little strap that is on the back that slides over the handle of your luggage for ease of traveling. Could you really ask for more? The pattern is from the Creative Thimble. I recommend a trip to the website to see for yourself. As for this particular bag, it went in the mail to it's new home earlier this week. A thank you for fetching me at the airport and feeding me for a few days! I had a chance to visit an old friend for a long weekend and had a wonderful time. The wallet, coin purse and luggage tag were all made out of the scraps. She should be receiving her package today. Hope she likes it!

Tommorrow I will be singing that ole song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in my head again. I hope to be on my way to Alaska for one last trip this summer. I live to drive my youngest son crazy with my visits! What are mom's for anyway! I call it my turn. He bugged me for 20 years and the paybacks are wonderful for me! :-) The planes are full though and standby is just that. So we will wait and hope for the best. I have almost 2 weeks off from work now, so I have some time to play. Yeah!! Playtime my favorite! Now if I were only old enough to retire and have playtime forever, then we would be talking!!!

Look forward to future whatever it holds!

Quilters tote bag

This week was a busy one. I attended two classes. The first one was the Blooming 9 Patch class which yielded a beautiful quilt top that needs some borders yet. I'll post that when it is done.

The second one was with our little quilt group yesterday. We made a tote bag that is large enough to carry our mats to class and all of our supplies in one bag. This monster is 26" wide and 21" tall. There are a ton on pockets inside and we added even more pockets on the outside. Gail our "great" instructor for the day even had us add little tabs to the top of the sides so if we are carrying anything tall in them, we can velcro them down at the top keeping them from flopping out as we carry the bag. She has such great vision, which was a "must" when it came to constructing these things. The pattern was very hard to follow. The instructions were poorly written at best. This would have definately been a UFO in my stash, had I not had Gail's help putting this together. I'm no pattern designer myself, but WOW, this one needed some help. One of the funniest things, was when the pattern called for us to cut 26', yes foot, long pockets. Now who's got a car that can handle a 26 foot long bag????? :-) :-) Half of us had patterns that called for 2 pockets on the inside, which was needed, and the other half had patterns that called for 1. I was a 1 person! Bless Gail for trudging thru making her bag, and sharing her learning experiences with the rest of us. We ended the day by stitching up the cute little carrying bags for all our sewing supplies out of the scraps. A big thanks to Gail for a wonderful day and a successful finish to this very useful bag. I can hardly wait to fill it with my supplies for next weeks class.

Colorado Quilt Council is bringing in Karla Alexander. I am taking a class for her "Bent out of Square" quilt. We need 60, 9" squares of assorted Batiks. From what I can tell, we stack them, chop them up, shuffle up the pieces and stitch back together. Looks very intersting. The lines are slightly curved, so I look forward to learning some new techniques and tips. I can hardly wait, and will keep you posted.

May you conquer "your" challenges!