my #newsstand tote

Pattern testing is one of my new favorite things. Talented pattern designers often head to instagram to find people willing to test out new patterns and I've been volunteering often lately. It's fun to choose fabrics for a project I wouldn't otherwise get to make, and this bag is my favorite of them all! It's the Newsstand Tote by Felice Regina and it features elasticized side pockets and an interior slip pocket, but you could easily customize it. I think if I made another I would add a key fob, maybe a zippered pocket in the lining, and use leather handles. This bag is going to be a workhorse for me so I think these pretty yellow handles are going to take a beating.

The construction of the bag was straightforward and simple. Felice writes great patterns and this one is pretty easy to follow, even for a novice bag maker. I've made a bunch of bags before but I don't often use very advanced techniques so sometimes I'm challenged by things like gussets or zipper installation, but this pattern was smooth sailing for me!

I love the exterior side pockets. They're a must for me on any bag because I like being able to carry the boys' water bottles in my bag without the risk of them spilling inside. It makes it easy for them to grab them, too. Then they're not fishing around in my bag and inadvertently finding the snacks I'm trying to save for later.

I used an Alison Glass Handcrafted print (plus in teal) for the main exterior, and Cotton + Steel for the pockets (from August), handles (one of the basics), and binding (from Mesa). The lining is a fun Alexander Henry print that I'm obsessed with lately. I've used it for three linings and put some of it in a quilt!

It's a good size for toting around anything I need for an outing with the boys - my wallet, keys, and phone, of course, along with diapers and wipes, a change of clothes for Finn, some snacks, Finn's epi pens, and lots of other purse detritus. I made a couple other pouches to corral my belongings - that pouch with the blue zip on top there is a Noodlehead open wide pouch and it holds a lip balm, diaper cream, hand sanitizer, and an Ava Anderson boo boo stick. There's a kitty wristlet in there, too, and I use it to hold my phone and keys if I'm leaving the diaper bag somewhere like at my parents' house or Matt's parents' house when they're watching the boys. Now I just need to make myself a wallet to replace my old and threadbare Vera Bradley one!

Be sure to check out all the other bags Felice's pattern testers made... I love the fabrics on them all! And as always, I have to thank Matt for the photos! He always says yes when I ask him to take some pictures for me, even when he has a backlog of weddings to edit and more scheduled for the coming weekend. Also, if I could wear jeans and a gray t shirt every day it would be great.

put a bow on it | a quilt for Norah

I made another quilt from start to finish in less than a week, immediately after giving the pinwheel quilt to Sage. I told Matt that I feel like a machine lately, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. On one hand, I like being productive and prolific, but on the other hand I've found that I'm working so quickly lately that some of the enjoyment is lost. I've been trying to meet self-imposed deadlines (baby's birthdays, mostly) but I haven't been getting any quilts done "on time" anyway. I think it's time to slow down a bit, so I can concentrate on my work and the process rather than the end result. Anyway, this quilt is for yet another baby, the daughter of our friends John and Rachel. I made a quilt for their first child, Elliott, who was born just a couple months after Finn, and they loved it and appreciated it so much that I started planning one for their second child pretty much the moment I found out Rachel was pregnant. Originally I planned on making a giant saw tooth star block, but I've wanted to make a bow quilt since I saw this one from Piece at Last and to be honest, I felt like I needed to make something quick after the pinwheel quilt. Plus I have a few other designs in process and in my mind that I need to get working on, so this simple design was a great fit for this project. The original design can be found in The It's Okay If You Sit On My Quilt Book, but I just sketched out the bow and figured out how many squares and half square triangles I needed. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on making a quilt like that? I copied the design of another quilter though I didn't buy her book. I'm not profiting off of this quilt in any way though, so I think it's okay. Just wondering how others feel about this issue. It tends to come up a lot in conversations about handmade goods. 

Back to the quilt! I've had the fabric picked out for this quilt ever since I knew Rachel was having a girl. Rachel told me the baby's room would probably be decorated in coral and gold tones, and I know that Rachel appreciates vintage grandma style so I selected another of my quilter's quarters bundles by Denyse Schmidt for Joann. I was lucky to have been given one by my mom (she's nice like that) and I purchased a second one when I found it at Joann unwrapped and therefore discounted! And I confess to purchasing a third bundle on etsy as I was working on this quilt because I realized how much I really like these fabrics, though they aren't my usual style, and I didn't want to be without them. I didn't intend on making a scrappy background, but I decided against using solid white because I had some low volume fat quarters that coordinated with the Denyse Schmidt prints nicely and I'm trying to sew my stash this year. After the bow and background were pieced I decided to add a patchwork border because the quilt was going to finish on the small side, only 35" square, so I dug into my stash to find some more low volume prints. I don't have that many so there are a bunch of repeats and I think they kind of distract from the bow but I still like the way the quilt came out. The little animal faces print redeems the border for me, though you can't see them in the photos, I don't think. For the back I used a large cut of a sweet and subtle polka dot and ladybug print along with another DS print, and the binding is scrappy ladybug and DS, too. I had a lot of fun quilting this one. I attempted some more free motion and tried my hand at a large orange peel design. I did three rows freehand and then realized I did one section facing the wrong direction which was really annoying, but I tend to just go with my mistakes and wasn't going to fix it. Then my mom came over and I pointed it out and she said two things - 1. I should mark the quilting lines so the orange peels look better (subtext: your quilting looks terrible. Thanks, Mom! ), and 2. Did I want her to rip out the stitches that were going the wrong way? I sighed and then accepted her offer, and I did mark the rest of my lines and the quilting started looking much better. In fact, the original row of quilting looks terrible in comparison to the rest. Sorry, Norah! Mother does know best ;)

I tried to think of somewhere vintage-y to take pictures and I thought of this old church near our house, so the next time we went out I asked Matt to bring his camera and we stopped on the way home from Lowes one day last week. The front door is really pretty and the side of the building has old fashioned white wooden siding with stained glass windows, but as you can see, he only took two pictures because Ezra was yelling from inside the car (which was less than ten feet away from where I was standing on the steps) that he wanted to get out, again. Needless to say, we wrapped up the shoot pretty quickly. Next time I think I'll pick a quilt photo shoot location that's not on a main road or near water so we don't have to worry about the boys :) 

I'm going to quote a fellow quilter, Astrid, again today - "The problem with making stuff for other people is that one day you actually have to say goodbye to these things you've poured a whole lot of yourself into. Things you've fallen a bit in love with, in the process. But that's the point, right? To pour out, over and over, in order to make space for new inspiration. To share the bits of ourselves that perhaps others are in need of. And if it doesn't hurt a bit to give it up, maybe there wasn't enough of us in it." Norah, I hope this quilt keeps you warm and brings you comfort! My love and prayers for you are stitched right into it. 

half square triangles and school buses | quilt 02 of 2015

This baby quilt was commissioned by my dad whose former bus monitor had a baby last year. He wanted to give a quilt to her son before the end of the school year and I was happy to make one for him. I had a bunch of half square triangles left over from the quilt I made for my nephew last year and had been itching to use them up and this was the perfect opportunity.

I didn't have nearly as many as I thought though, so after I finalized a design for the HSTs on my design wall I looked through my stash for the fabrics I had made them with and added them to the sides. Alexander Henry's 2d zoo and teeny tiny zoo are my favorites, and then there are a couple polka dots, and some random frogs that I've had in my stash forever. While I liked them, it was one of those prints that I'm glad to say goodbye to!

The back is made up of a couple large cuts of fabric that I had in my stash - green seersucker, typewriter keys, and school buses! I was so excited when I remembered I had school bus fabric in my stash. I used it as a table runner for Ezra's second birthday party and hung on to it, sure I would never find a use for it, but since my dad drives a school bus part time and this quilt is for a bus monitor's son it couldn't be more perfect! 

I quilted it with straight lines on either side of all the horizontal and vertical seams, and bound it in the green seersucker print that I used on the back.