Fun Baby Quilt Pattern

 I found a free pattern online from one of the fabric companies and decided it would make a great baby quilt kit. Whenever I use a free pattern for a kit, I always make one first. I'm sure glad I have that rule because this pattern had a pretty major cutting error in it!

It turned out pretty cute though once I figured out why things weren't fitting together as they should! Because of the error, I don't have this ready for sale yet. I have to fix the pattern first and make sure that the fabric requirements listed are correct too! I'm not going to share a link to the pattern because I don't recommend it as it is written. Once I fix it up though, it will be better than the original and I am going to include some recommended short cuts to make this even easier to piece. The binding will be the red fabric that frames all of the animal print squares.

The kits I sell will have the corrected pattern in them. I'll let you know when they are ready for sale. The pattern says this should finish at 39" by 48", but I haven't measured mine. And, I didn't take the time to do all the arithmetic to figure out is that is correct or not, but it's close to correct.

More Tourist Totes

 I'm having a great time with this new pattern! It's called Tourist Tote. For these next ones I shopped from my stash.

Here they are both completed and ready to use!

And check out how green the grass in my backyard is already! We've had a lot of rain here recently.

My plan for these bags was one for me and one for my son. He turns 21 on Saturday! How did that happen?! He needed a new bag to carry his dinner and snacks with him to his new job. Right now he is working nights. Nothing is open around here overnight and he can't really leave anyway, so he needs to bring with him plenty of food to make it through his shift, which are 10-11 hours long. A little lunch box just doesn't cut it, but this bag is plenty roomy enough for him. He picked the right hand one. And my husband claimed the other one so I still don't have one of these bags even though I've made three!

Tourist Tote

 A customer told me about her favorite tote bag pattern recently. It's called the Tourist Tote. It looked like a good pattern and I had a good recommendation for the pattern, so I ordered several copies of it.

Then I had to make one!

I used four prints from the new Serene Nature fabric collection that arrived recently. This is a very nice bag and a nice pattern. It's not a very complicated bag pattern but you could easily add some pockets (inside or outside between the handles). You could also add a magnetic snap or zipper to the top of the bag.

The top opening is 18 1/2" wide. At the bottom it's 12" wide. It's 12" tall and 7" deep. So it will hold a lot of stuff! It calls for Decor Bond interfacing on everything so it stands up nicely on it's own and is a good, sturdy bag.

The pattern and the individual fabrics are all available on my website.

Tourist Tote Pattern

Serene Nature Fabric Collection

However, if you'd like, I can make you a kit so that you can make a bag exactly like mine or you can let me know which fabrics you want me to use for your kit. The kit would include all of the fabrics for the bag plus the Decor Bond interfacing for $34.99. You'd need to purchase the pattern too, which is $10.99. I'd make you up a kit and then send you a direct link to purchase everything through my website with one click.

Rabbit Hole Covers

 The name of this post is a joke. A group of us here has been making these and we joke that "we've gone down a rabbit hole." Hence the name, rabbit hole covers. Actually these will eventually be turned into pin cushions once I can stop hand sewing them and find time to turn them into pin cushions.

This first set are woven patterns. You do some stitching then you weave through the stitching to create the design.

This one is a rice pattern.

This one is just a spiral ending with an X in the middle.

We started making these then decided we needed some pattern ideas so I got us this book.

We are using gingham prints as our base fabrics. I have 8 of these in stock right now with more coming next month. The gingham fabrics are from a collection called Sorbet. There are only three prints in the collection - pin dots, tossed circles and gingham, each in 12 colors. The pin dots print also works really well for sashiko stitching with no marking, but I haven't started playing with it yet.

The book is called Sashiko 365 and is a fabulous book of sashiko designs.

Quilting Boxed Up Sample

 I shared with you recently about the new Cluck, Cluck Sew patterns I just got for my shop and that I made the Boxed Up pattern using the new Swatch collection. Well, here is the completed top.

I quilted in the ditch to stabilize everything and now I am quilting the blocks. Here is what I am doing in the big squares.

I am using the Westalee 2" circle template for the circle design and the Westalee 12" Straight-Arc template for the straight lines and for the stitching in the ditch. I haven't decided what I will do for the border around each of the large squares or for the sashing, but I've got a ways to go to finish the large squares so I have plenty of time to figure that out. I'm lovin' it so far!

If you look at the first photo of the whole quilt top you'll notice that the off white fabric with black dots looks more solid gray from a distance. You really don't notice the dots until you get closer. How fun is that?!

Secret Garden

 These new fabrics arrived in my shop recently from Lewis & Irene.

The name of the collection is Secret Garden.

I think these are just so lovely! I couldn't resist making something up with these. I chose the Honor pattern from Villa Rosa Designs.

The main print is the one I used in the center of the quilt. Here is a close-up photo of it.

If you'd like to make one of these quilts too you need just one 1 yard of each print in the collection. If you are ordering the fabrics from my shop, you'd need to order a quantity of 2 of each fabric because I sell my fabrics online in 1/2 yard increments. 

As a special offer for my readers, if you order a yard of each fabric in the collection (remember that's a quantity of 2 for each print), I'll include a FREE copy of the Honor pattern with your order. Just leave me a note when you check out that you are a blog reader and want a free copy of the Honor pattern.

Secret Garden Fabric collection