Ju-Ju-Be

Eh? What is that? WELL for those of you not in the know, Ju-Ju-Be is a brand of handbags, backpacks etc, they are specially designed with Mom's in mind and make absolutely fantastic baby bags. They use space in an efficient and practical manner that just makes a busy Mom happy, you don't have to think about fitting all the nonsense in your bag or finding it later, it's easy and intuitive.

ANYWAY as I am not a paid spokesperson for them i'll leave it at that and continue onto why we all should care :) These bags have a cult following, people LOVE them, the prints and styles are only around for a short period of time. There are people that can customize your bag, and the change pads are cannibalized for parts!

That's where we start today. My Sister-in-Law is... enthusiastic... about these bags, she has a few of them and loves them to death. I personally have two, a BFF in Cobalt Blossoms and a beQuick in Champagne Bubbles (gift from SiL). 

Tiny small Ju-Ju-Be pouches

She purchased a pile of scraps, by scraps I mean tiny pieces of the fabric the bag/change pads are made of.   In a variety of colors that were in no relation to each other.   (I really wish I had a "before" photo...)  I had on hand flannel to line the bags; I love a soft flannel lining it's extremely versatile.  After making regular style pouches, I tried sewing/clipping off the corners to make more of a "boxy" look. This is still in development, but I'm very happy with the results. All in all I made six bags, and I have some fabric left over for one possibly two more. The scraps are small and since the fabric is so stiff it can't be patched together as neatly as quilting cotton.

With the exception of the tiny Blue Bouquet that SiL kept for herself :)  The remaining bags are FOR SALE!!  Hooray!

Go get em in my Etsy shop!

Sugar Creek and the HST

I'm pretty obsessed with the DS fabrics you can purchase at Joann's Fabrics.  They are nice quality, you can use coupons, and they are something that requires collecting.  I have recently obtained 17 of the 18 prints in her new line, Sugar Creek.  (The 18th is in the mail from Etsy!)

I am a new user of Pinterest, it's super fun, and I ran into some beautiful HST quilts, and then found this tutorial.  I THEN saw this quilt on Fresh Lemons.  Between the two I was decided that my stack of Sugar Creek (with some Picnic's and Fairgrounds that I had leftover from Swoon) would shine beautifully in a pattern like this.

So I cut out a bunch of 9" triangles (I cut out a 9" square, and then cut it in half),  I then got my hands on some Kona Snow which looks nice with this.  At that point I was feeling a little stuck, and I remembered that black and white photographs of fabric help with sorting values.  So I took some pictures and did some sorting.  Ultimately coming up with this arrangement,

Clockwise from top left:  High Contrast, medium contrast, light, medium, dark

In case you're wondering the 18th fabric will be in the dark pile in the lower left corner.

You'll notice in the B&W photo it's easy to see which fabrics blend together and which ones will contrast against each other.  Since I'm pretty sure i'm going to put the white in, ala Fresh Lemon's Parisville, I will now select triangles from 2 different piles to put my blocks together.  This makes my 120 triangles WAY more manageable and much easier to pair up.

Let's get sewing!