Curved seams & drawstrings

It's always good to step outside our comfort zone.  And that is exactly what I did on the "quilting" cruise I took in January.  We had 2 projects while on board the ship - one was paper pieced and one was curved seams.  I hadn't really done curved seams before, other than just a couple of blocks, so this table topper (about 30" across) was a learning experience.  It was done in triangle shaped sections with only short curved seams.  

The purple bars in this quilt are actually done with a striped fabric, so it has a look of being more complicated than it actually is. My only issue with this one is the binding/backing fabric we were given.  It's the same basic leaf design as the background fabric, but the greens are slightly different. But I went ahead and used it anyway and it doesn't look too drastically different.

One quick Saturday morning sewing project was this little drawstring bag.  Our bus trip committee made up 44 kits (pattern, 2 fat quarters, ribbon) for participants' goody bags on the bus.  We always include coupons, snacks, and other goodies in the bag. This year we added this project kit.  It took me about a half hour to make, and ends up about 8" tall.  Ironically it's kind of an "inside out" version of a previous drawstring bag that I've made in the past.  The other version has the criss-cross sections on the inside like pockets.