Weekly update: totes, stars, and selvedges

These totes are my declared March OMG.  Here is the link up to the finished projects page. 

I made two tote bags for the ZWC/Zion Conservatory of Music fundraiser March 11. They're smaller than I'd like -- more like purses than book totes.

The red-and-black tote is small because I wanted to use up the piece of car head liner that I had on hand. That was the size it was. I then went to Joann's, armed with a 50% off-one-cut coupon and bought two more yards of head liner. [I think the head liner works as well as the more expensive In R Form. The difference is that head liner is fabric on one side, foam on the other. In R Form has fabric on both sides with foam in the middle.]

Orphan block used as an inner pocket 

 I tried a new pattern for the floral tote. (I remember buying the floral fabric at a quilt shop in Kenner, LA, when the ALA Biblioquilters took a fabric-shopping field trip. That was about 2003. I was never comfortable with it -- the gray is too pewtery to go with much else and I didn't get enough to use for a border or a back -- but every time I got it out thinking I'd cut it up I'd think that with some creativity I could use it for something.  Fourteen years in my stash was long enough.)

I have enough of both focus fabrics to make larger totes if I get ambitious.

Meanwhile, I cut up more whites/cream, red, and blue and made 32 more Ohio Stars. Squaring up the hourglass units is tedious.  That done, block assembly is a snap.







Rather than start on MORE Ohio Stars I pulled out a sack of trimmed selvedges. I want to make a quilt-themed totebag.  These are 6" unfinished, which means they'll finish at 5-1/2" but as long as all the blocks for the tote are the same size they'll be okay.

Monday linkups:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Oh, Scrap!
Design Wall Monday