Monday, June 14, 2010

Noodlehead's Gathered Clutch & The Polk Dollar

Zippered CLutch

I am sure you have seen Noodlehead's Gathered Clutch tutorial? Well, it's pretty awesome!

 I love zippered pouches as an alternative to gift wrap. Since I have to mail practically every gift, paper wrappings can be tricky. Plus storing wrapping paper in an apartment seems like a poor use of space.
Lee's Package
 A yellow themed birthday package.

Love me a zippered pouch, but hand sewing the lining into a zippered pouch drove me crazy! I really am not a good hand sewer. Anyway, Noodlehead's tutorial shows how to do  the zippered pouch without hand sewing the lining!

I still need a bit more practice with this. The first try was a bit bunchy. And, I wish I had another color zipper. This was a saw it-wanted to make it-stores closed-use what you have project. I realize I should have ironed my seams flat before sewing.

Wonkey zipper stitching
 Still, I felt accomplished. It took me about an hour and a half to do everything.
 Gathered Pouch
The size is about 8" across and 5" wide. Mine is a little lopsided. Nothing that a little practice can't fix.

In other news have you seen the Polk Dollar? How is that for a non sequitur?

A few months ago Cliff and I went hiking at one of our state parks. The admission was $12 and Cliff only had a $20. The attendant pointed us to a pay machine. Well, we got $8 in golden Polk Dollars for change.  We have all of the 50 states quarters in both PA and CO mints. Yes, we geeked out on this collection. (Watch this is the one random post a month that my brother reads. I'll never hear the end of how nerdy I am.) Must admit though, we were pretty excited with this new stash.
Polk Dollar
So we have been tucking these into all our gifts as of late. Just a bit of random for the recipient. Turns out the mint is doing a presidents series similar to the State Quarters. I mention this because I think they are cool and many of you may or may not personally know the tooth fairy. OK, maybe kids don't care about Polk.  Lincoln comes out this year. In any case, it's a golden dollar! I'd love to get the Andrew Jackson dollar when it comes out and sneak it under Cliff's pillow. Do you have a favorite president?

I wonder if banks carry these? Maybe you know of other machines that give these as change? I am going to try at the subway...maybe coffee machines?

Ok, so enough of this chatter. Gotta get my rest. Just 4 more days in the Crayon Box!

3 comments:

Nutsy Coco said...

Good first try on the clutch! I can hand sew ok but I avoid any zipper pouch patterns that require hand sewing. There are so many nice ones out there that don't require it!
I didn't know about the dollar coin series.

We got 3 $1 coins recently and I can't remember what president was on them. I'll have to take a look!

Raesha D said...

I just discovered Noodlhead this week! LOVE your clutch - so cute!! I have had good luck getting the presidential coins at the post office:)We are actually a little behind in our collection - I need to see how many we need to get caught up. We have all but maybe 4 of the state quarters.

Stacy said...

Hi There!! Finally catching up on everything I have been missing over here!!
The Wyckoff Y vending machines give out these dollars...my mom is also obsessed...she brings a $5 every time she does the ballet carpool!!