Purses, pouches, bags and wallets have been a lot on my mind recently. All I have wanted to to do is sew up little projects. It is so satisfying to whip up a few small projects and be finished in a day or two! I think the most time consuming part for me is choosing which fabrics to use. Since the projects are small you want to be able to show off your favourite fabric and choose accent fabrics that really make those projects pop! With a large quilt I can choose many different fabrics but for a small project where I only use 1 or 2 fabrics, I find it so hard to choose!

Anyway, to quench my thirst for making small projects I decided to take part in the Pretty Little Pouch Swap. I have to admit I had been stalking this swap for a while and was desperately hoping that the next round would come at a time when I had a few minutes to spare. And thank goodness it did! My partner for the swap was Kelly from KelbySews. This lady is a fabulous sewist and really has an eye for small projects. Just see all the goods she whipped up for the bazaar she took part in! She is also one of the formidable duo that make up the Pretty Little Pouch swap mamas. So I have to admit that I did feel the pressure to come up with something great.

To top it off Kelly has also contributed to Fat Quarterly, (she made some fabulous coasters as part of the Designer Challenge in the Fall Inspired issue) and I wanted to make her something that would really suit her.
So I went online and ordered a whole load of frames for purses and waited....and waited....and waited. And then turned to plan B!


Kelly had also mentioned she was looking for a pouch for her sunglasses. The perfect opportunity to try out some paper piecing. I followed the tutorial on Kerry's blog and was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it!


And of course sod's law is that when I was about 3/4 of the way finished with the above pouch, the frames that I had ordered arrived. And of course the pouch that I had made did not fit the dimensions of the frames. Grrrrr.....
But since I couldn't wait to give the flex frames a test drive I made another pouch! In fact I made me one as well which I used to look after my passport and boarding pass when I went to Quilt Market!


But of course the best part of the swap was yet to come. I posted off my pouches and trieed to forget that a pouch would be winging its way to me! I tried not to scour the photo pool and guess which was mine as I really love surprises! And I was really very happily surprised when I received this fabulous swap package from Jen (Bettycrockerass).


I "met" Jen years ago on Flickr when she asked if I would print some robots in pink for her daughter's birthday so I had to giggle when I saw the paper she had chosen to wrap the pouch in!
And just look what she embroidered inside! I feel as if Jen is in the pouch and it makes me smile every time I open it up.


I definitely got a great partner in the swap. Thank you so much Jen for making me 2 fabulous pouches and for all the small details which made it perfect just for me.

Now I'm waiting for the next round. How about you? Did you take part in the swap?