Two little totes - all finished

I wanted to make one more gift to pop into my Operation Christmas Child shoebox - a little patchwork tote.  At the same time I made another similar tote for my little granddaughter to give as a birthday party gift for her school friend Niamh.

For both bags I used 2.5" squares from my stash and laid them out in 5 rows of 4 squares.

I lined both with the same pale pastels striped fabric and used a bright pink with turquoise dots for the handles.  Both bags had squares of both fabrics in them so it did match up.
The bags finish at 7.5" x 9.5".  I appliqued Niamh's name on the front of her bag.

Here they are:

 

 

I hope both little girls will enjoy carrying their treasures around in them.

 

It is so useful having a stash of squares on hand - an idea I got from Bonnie Hunter's blog. 

Whenever I finish a project or I am just left with a small piece of fabric after I have been cutting out I cut it into useful sizes for my scraps stash:

 

These are the sizes I always cut scraps into:

 

SQUARES:



2", 2.5", 3", 4.5"

 

STRIPS:

1.25", 1.5", 2", 2.5"

 

Small scraps are put into my Crumb blocks tin.

 

Uneven shaped strips are kept in a bag ready to be used in Strip quilts.

 

So you see, nothing is wasted!