Quilter's Butt and a New Resolve

It's cliche but one of my resolutions this year was to get rid of what I am not so fondly calling "Quilter's butt". I'm blaming it on bad weather, facebook, all those handmade pay it forward projects I committed myself to in 2011, and the fact that everyone was having babies and needed quilts. In reality, I'm just getting old and lazy and decided it was time to get in shape. I made it through my second hellish workout and am starting to think I really don't mind getting fat.

I also resolved that I would not buy anymore fabric quilting fabric this year. I am going to make a dent in my mounds of scraps and use up my stash.

 My first scrap project of the year was this super cute pincushion from Anna Maria Horner's book, Seams to Me.

This is my first project from the book and it was a pain in the quilter's butt. It's a bit wonky even after a near catastrophic attempt at putting it in the microwave to reshape the fusible interfacing (Note to self-take out the pins first) but I kind of love it. I was super frustrated by some aspects of the project so I did a little research and discovered there are errors in the pattern. Now that I know the tricks, guess what everyone is getting for gifts this year? Smile.

I also used up some stash by creating this customized ereader pouch for a friend. It was my first time trying to adjust patterns for size and only my second attempt at zippers.

 The pouch was way to small for her reader but is just the right size to hold my new rotary cutter and blades! I'm liking the zips though and I now want to put them on EVERYTHING.  My kids might be rocking some 80's style Jackson pants this year. =)