This post is made up of multiple projects, so it’s going to be a bit long.
May I present to you the next installment of Quiltalong Prize packs - the Keeping It Together prize pack:
Whether it be a project, notions, keys, or maybe just a bit of one’s sanity, this prize pack is all about keeping it together! I made four prize packs in total. The prizes consisted of a project bag, a snap tray, a keychain, and a sticker.
I used this tutorial as a guide for the project bags. When I went to make the bottom right bag, I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that there was a pixel selvage near the top of the fabric. I ended up altering the size of the strips above and below the zipper to make sure that selvage would show since the blue fabric above it is from the pixel line 
. I used my laser cutter to make ‘handmade’ tags to add to each bag.
Here are a few in progress shots of the project bag.
Figuring out the best color scheme (I definitely spent a decent amount of time on each bag at this particular step):
Using strips of Steam a Seam to baste the fabric to the zippers:
Realizing that I sewed the vinyl on incorrectly:
Prepped and ready for the binding to be stitched down:
Next up, we have the snap trays. I used the laser cutter to cut the cork into the tray shape (and again to make the handmade tags). Then I called upon Thread Astaire to take care of the stitching. I cut out the SEW design using HTV with my Silhouette and applied it to the cork with the heat press. If I were to make these again, I’d stitch the black thread design in the middle of the tray so that it went through both layers of cork instead of just the top layer. I feel like that would help prevent the cork from bowing inward slightly (like it is in the right side of this pic).
I created this sticker design in Silhouette Studio. I thought it was done, but was a little disappointed that it felt kind of plain. That’s when I got the idea to add the little x’s to the background, which made all the difference!
I came up with this design as a bit of a ‘LettuceCraft Quiltalong’ logo and decided to turn it into a keychain. After printing out a few test sizes, I decided to make it 1 7/8" tall.
This keychain definitely evolved throughout the process and is a much improved upon version of my original idea, which involved acrylic and faux leather (thankfully, when placing the acrylic and leather order for the keychain, I had the foresight to also order some coral pinky acrylic as a backup). Once the plan had shifted to using all acrylic, I then had to figure out if/how I would seal it. I decided on resin. I made a few attempts with UV resin, but I always ended up with bubbles that would show up right as I was curing. My husband pointed out that the edges of the cut acrylic were rough, so I was always going to end up with air pockets, even if I couldn’t see them. In the end I went with an epoxy resin. I found out the hard way that my resin had a 24 hour shelf life. Which meant that the brand new unopened resin that I’d had sitting around for over a year was no longer any good and as a result while one batch cured just fine, the second batch never cured (thank goodness my husband figured out the shelf life was the issue, otherwise I’d have spent waaay too much time using bad resin). New resin fixed my issues and I am very happy with the end result!
The blue glitter acrylic was shiny black on the backside, but it was the kind of shine that showed every single fingerprint, which I wasn’t a fan of. So, I used some ultra fine sandpaper and sanded the shine away, giving the back a matte black finish.
Each prize pack also included a card. I made the fabric part a few years ago and decided now was the perfect time to finally turn them into cards. I liked how the black cardstock framed the designs, so I grabbed some sparkly white thread and stitched them down. I only thought to take a picture after I’d already sealed one card up in an envelope.
The prize packs all packaged up and ready to go:
If you looked at the tag on those packages, you may have noticed that these were the prize packs for the third quarter of last year 
. Yeah, I was that far behind.
Since I was so far behind, I decided on a cop out for the next two prizes. Hence the “Taking the Easy Way Out” prize for the last quarter of 2025.
I called the 2026 Q1 prize “Taking The Easy Way Out With A. Glass” and sent out a couple of fabric bundles with 6 Alison Glass fat quarters.
And now, I am all caught up with prize packs and will hopefully get ahead of the game before the next one is due!
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