Great minds....

Isn't it funny how some patterns or tutorials just seem to capture the quilting community's imagination and suddenly versions are popping up everywhere?  Look at Anna's fantastic bag patterns over at Noodlehead - who hasn't tried a 241 yet?

I guess it's only natural that following on from the handbag theme would be purses and wallets - I've spent most of the summer in awe of the amazing frame purses springing up everywhere after the FQ Retreat in June.  I never plucked up the courage to try one of those, maybe one day.

However, wallets seem to be the next thing, and I very happily jumped on the bandwagon over the weekend with this tutorial from Confessions of a Fabricaholic.  I'd seen the one made by Charlotte not only on her blog but actually in the flesh as it were at our LMQG meet.  I decided it was just the thing to use some of my Summersville for, and I like a nice bright wallet.  

Charlotte's advice was to 'interface the heck out of it' and so I took her at her word and interfaced nearly every pattern piece!  I'd got some of the really stiff Pellon interfacing to use on the outside to give it some support, but I also wanted to use fusible fleece to give it a bit of a soft feel.  So I used both.... hmmm, I like the finished effect, but it meant some adaptation of the tutorial was necessary!  When I sewed around the outside and turned it through, it bowed!  Nothing was going to make it lie flat that way, so I undid it, sewed it wrong sides together and bound it instead.  It's given me a slightly bigger wallet, which I can also slip my mobile phone into when I nip into to the supermarket, almost like a mini clutch.  

This project was also my first attempt at a zip, and I'm not sure I got it entirely right, but for a first go, I'm pretty pleased!

All in all, this has already gone into daily use, and I love it.  I was going to have a got at making a folding wallet for the OH from another pattern by Angharad but I can only find images in flowery girly fabrics, not the rugged denim I was going to use for him, and so he's not keen!  No imagination, that one!

Anyway, it's a big day for me today as I go under the knife myself.  So I may be absent for a little while, depending how things go.  See you all soon.