One of the finished pencil kits
This pencil kit has slots for pencils and pens only and no pocket. The zippered pocket is shown here.
The material on the outside of this kit is recycled grocery bag. I saw a similar technique used here. Above you see what the bag looked like when the paints were drying. And below is a close up. 
Below are two more pencil kit covers. I'll post the directions for the kit- one with a pocket and one without.
A recent finish. Linda's quilt- she does nice work, great colors and the prairie points add a nice dimension.
-a surprise flower on a plant which otherwise had died off a month ago-
-vibrant orange from the shade garden-
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I didn't want the quilting thread to be another element in this already mish mashed piece, so I went ahead and used clear thread. Clear thread is not a preferred thread of mine, but it does have it's place for stitching in the ditch and invisible applique. In this instance, however, it worked fine for quilting.
The layer of organza changed the look of the colors completely. I never would have tried this had I not been doing these quiltlet self challenges. For an art quilt, it gave a a neat translucent look. I will try it again.
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A similar, smaller version of a stone fence (shown below) might be more appropriate. Oh, and I finished the left side of the 'inlet' but forgot the pix and I'm contemplating doing the background, behind the hills - as pieced squares set on the diagonal. Not sure. I hear this weekend's weather is supposed to be inside weather - good for sewing weather. So I will see what I can come up with then.
And tonight is Guild night which is always entertaining for a variety of reasons. I'm sure tonight won't disappoint.
While waiting for the painted coffee filters to dry, I finished Dolores' quilt. A sweet lady who made two cute house quilts years and years ago. Her intent was to hand quilt them, but never did.... soon she will have her quilts to give as gifts.
Now back to finish the other while I contemplate a plan for my recycled cr#%.
For now...
The background of this piece started as a dorky looking bag, you can see it's before pix here. Using snips of fabrics, threads and tulle I modified the background. Some of the tulle was melted away with a heat gun and I used paint sticks, gold leaf and glitter to fill in the spaces. Because I quilted this with just batting and no back, I took a piece of back fabric the size of the front and attached fusible to it. Then I stitched the front and back together pillow case style. Once I flipped the right sides out, I edge stitched at 1/4" from the edge and ironed. Using clear thread, the flowers were attached. There are several crystals, but they don't show up in the picture.
So, that is what I'm doing. And here you see it below, taped to the wall. I don't have a design wall, painter's tape seems to work well for short periods of time.
The second piece- I would like it to have more color. I'm toying with the idea of four swans. The dock is going to show more. You can see below, on the first- I made some thread work trees with snips of green fabric for leaves. There is not a lot of contrast between the trees and the background. I'd like to work that out a bit better this time.
And lastly, there has to be a fisherman. I sketched out a figure and shrunk it on the photo copier. He is still a little too big, so back to the shrinking machine for him. And he'll add a little pop of color somehow. Maybe a red jacket.
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It started as the piece shown below- to be a handbag. Really. Where was I going carrying that? The dork parade? Thankfully I stopped myself... Anyway. The flowers are not attached, but in the coming days I'll work on it and post how I finished it off.
