Pouchette

Many times I run out of inspiration for something different to do. Before the stitching blog explosion I would search through my magazines for something different that I hadn't tried before. Nowadays I just log on and browse through my favourite stitching blogs, like this one. I'd seen these little pouches several times and wanted one. Yesterday I had finished all my swap stitching and decided to make something for myself and here is the result. It's a great little pouch for adding to swaps and as gifts for stitchy friends, I think the idea I saw on one blog of using it to send fat quarters or samples of fabric in was a lovely idea, so that's what mine will be for. I'm using calico and some of my fat quarters, this is a great way for me to cut into some of my stash.

I love the colour of this one, the green print is very pretty and the pin-tucks and lace are enough decoration I think.

Puzzle Punch

Last year my friend gave me a puzzle punch. I used it to punch out the corners of cards but hadn't really spent any time getting to use it properly. This past weekend I decided to spend time getting to know how this punch worked and these two cards are the ones I made that have some stitching on them. I like the colour of the cream and green one but I'm not so keen on the pink card I used on the second one, I do like the embroidery on it though, it's adapted from a free pattern from here.

Crazy Quilting

I'm putting together the packages ready to send to my cq swap partners and decided I must get a picture of the bunches of grapes I'd put on one of the blocks. I've never done cq before and found it quite a struggle deciding what embroidery I should do on the blocks. I've tried to cover each seam with stitching and was left with this short seam so decided to try using beads. The grapes turned out quite realistic I think! So, I will be doing them again on something for myself.