La Finished Ruler Bag!

She is done!  I'm so excited.  I presented this quilted ruler bag to the enabler after she returned from a mini-trip with her mom.  I was a little worried I would run out of time, but this bag came together really well thanks to fabulous instructions from Polly Monica on the Moda BakeShop.  Here is the excellent tutorial for the Queen Bee Bag.

The pictures were great, the instructions were clear, and one of the best parts was that this project uses one whole charm pack, plus yardage for a print and a solid.  In fact, you probably have what you need to make this in your stash.  Ahem.  I would know.

The pattern is listed under 120 minute gifts.  If you're going to a party this afternoon for one of your best quilting buddies and you still need a gift - this is probably not for you.  It could be that if the cutting is done, your walking foot works, you have lots of bobbins ready to go, you won't change your mind on what stitch you'll use to quilt the pockets and panels and nobody else is home and will ask you anything that you might be able to finish in 2 hours.  In my case, I worked on this like it was my mission from Sunday to Friday.

That said, this is still a good project for most quilters because the instructions really are clear, and the piecing is quite straightforward.  

This is early on in the process.  These are the squares from the charm pack stitched and ready to attach to the print for the front panel.  The nice thing about using a charm pack is that it requires not too much fussing to get a really satisfying arrangement.

A little late night quilting.  The charm pack was Sweet Serenade - Basic Grey for Moda and the prints were from Comma - Moda which I also love and still have some mini charm packs to use.

I plan to make a couple more of these bags for special quilters or maybe for me.  It's a really nice gift to honour a fellow quilter, and yet it's not another quilt - because a fellow quilter might not really need one...

Oh and the size - the first photo above shows the bag with a fully protected 8.5 x 24 ruler inside the bag and a 6 x 24 in the front pocket in no danger of falling out.  The back of the bag holds a 14 inch square ruler nested in the back pocket along with a 12 x 18 mat tucked into the same pocket.