Market Bag

Last week I saw a post on House on Hill Road about these great market bags.  I decided I needed to make myself one and spent Friday night doing so.  I was planning to go to the Farmer's Market with a friend on Saturday morning so clearly I needed a cute new tote.  Right?

The pattern is really great.  Quite easy and there is a picture for every step.  LOVE that! I found the more difficult part was choosing the fabrics to use.  I became abundantly aware of my adversion to taking risks- even in fabric choices!  Hence the heavy use of solids.  Now that I have made my trail run and everything went smoothly, maybe I can branch out and use some patterns.  Gasp!  I'm living on the edge now.  :)

Little Bag

My sister-in-law's 21st birthday is coming up. I decided that it seemed like a good reason to test out the Buttercup Bag pattern from Made by Rae.

I made it using some fabrics from the Arcadia line by Moda. I found some parts of the pattern to be written a little oddly. Like the starps, why are they sewn on the outside? Next time I'll change that. I also changed the way you attached the lining to the outside of the purse. I really didn't like where the pattern has you leave an opening to flip the inside out. Overall, though, it is a pretty simple pattern and I like the results a lot!

I'm going to need to make one of these for myself!

I'm a winner!

Back at the end of May, Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio hosted an awsome giveaway.  There were over 30 items to win.  I actually won something too!  Yay!  I was so surprised!  My prize was a $10 gift certificate to Kathy's shop, Pink Chalk Fabrics. Yay again! :)


This week I finally cashed in my gift certificate (and a bit extra) to get some goodies.  A couple half yards of Alexander Henry's Granville and a charm pack of Arcadia by Moda.  Now I'm kind of wishing I bought two charm packs though.  Doh! 

Back at it

I'm back to making 9 patches this evening.

I took couples weeks off to finish these quilts.

I'm now up to a grand total of 60. Yikes! I'm almost done!

Black, White, & Yellow All Over

During our 5 hour drive to Traverse City on Friday I stitched the binding on the Black, White, & Yellow All Over quilt.

I was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the change in scenary as well.  These photos were taken at the bed and breakfast we stayed at on Sunday night, Chateau Chantel.  It is quite a gorgeous place.  It's a shame the weather was so dreary.  The photos really do not to the place justice.

Close up.

This quilt was string paper pieced.  Originally inspired by this quilt.  The unfinished blocks were 12.5" square.  I collected black and white fabric for awhile and tried putting the quilt together with other patterns, however, I never came up with one that I loved.  I saw Ashley's quilt and thought it looked like a winner and gave it a go.  I'm pretty pleased with the results!

Chantilly Quilt Finished

Now this is a quilt I have not blogged about much.  Or at all.  I used the Chantilly pattern by Fig Tree Quilts.  I really liked this quilt in the pictures, however, it ended up being a ton of work!  I ended up making it smaller than I intended because I could not bring myself to make anymore of those red blocks.  At least it looks good!

Here is when I finished the top about 2 weeks ago.  This was for one of those blog posts I  just didn't get around to writing.

And now here is the finished product.  I quilted it with an all over stipple.  I am quite pleased with how it turned out!

And now the back.

The finished size is about 39" x 39".

Hello again!

The past few weeks have been the kind where I think of blog posts but never actually make it to the computer to write them. So let's try to catch up.

On May 23, Shawn and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Yay! :)

The bakery who made our wedding cake even supplied us with an anniversary cake. Yum!

This morning we are traveling to the Traverse City area for another wedding and a relaxing, belated anniversary trip. I'm really excited!

More when we return. Promise.