Another UFO bites the dust

Sorry for the radio silence lately - my internet has been down - peaceful at first and then frustrating!

I've been thinking about my pile of UFO's or WIP's - yeah, I know, nothing new about that!  But I do want to whittle them down.  I was taking stock today and I saw this piece in the stack.

It's been taking up valuable real estate in my cupboard for several years.  I don't even know what it was intended to be.  Some sort of fractured/stained glass thingy that I had fused and then appliquéd random patterns, not even around each edge so not very stable!

So I shoved it under my needle and quilted it in black thread around each piece of coloured fabric.  It gave it a sketchy look I liked and would help hold the fused bits of fabric down.

Then I found Catherine Parkinson's tutorial on making little pouches/purses out of practice quilts and followed the instructions.  Catherine is a New Zealand blogger who quilts and photographs and sketches and is well worth checking out.

There were a couple of things I did differently.  In step 8, you need to put your pieces right sides together - but you'd have figured the out anyway.

When you are stitching two layers together around the edges to then turn right sides out and you have to leave a gap to turn them through, I always mark when I have to stop stitching with a double pin.  It must be the way my brain works, but too many times I've kept on going right the way round the whole edge - doh!

I used a popper, or dome fastener instead of stitching on velcro - but that's personal choice.  They are easy to put in, you just need a cheap tool that you buy at the same time as the domes, a hammer, some brute force and a little bit of patience to line them up.

I ended up with two cute little purses.  The back one has been claimed for my rotary cutter and the front one will go in the 'to be gifts one day' stash.

Yay!  One UFO finished, one cute pouch for me, one gift for my gift stash and one happy quilter! (and one gap in my cupboard - does this mean I can start another project?)

I'll leave you with an image of what's happening outside my back door.  Tui feeding on flax flowers - so lovely to watch.