I’m not sure if I said my Weekender was the last bag I’d make for awhile. If I did, I guess I lied. While I was at Quilt Camp, I was lucky enough to sit across from the very talented Amanda of Sasikirana Handmade. Everything she makes is so.stinking.cute. She has such great talent when it comes to fabric selection and fussy cutting prints perfectly.

So as I was sitting across from her, I decided I just had to make something cute. I have been looking for an excuse to make Ayumi Takahashi’s Popsicle pattern for awhile now and decided to use it to make my daughter a tote bag for Christmas. Ayumi blogs at the Pink Penguin and has created a ton of amazing paper piecing patterns.

Paper piecing the popsicles wasn’t too hard, although I did mess up a couple components and had to redo them. That little nose is super tiny! Overall though, it was a huge success. I added a bit of fabric from Tasha‘s fabric line The Sweetest Thing above and below the popsicles and to the back of the tote.

I used another print on the lining. It’s really, well, the sweetest thing! The straps are a stripe from Bonnie & Camille‘s Marmalade fabric line.

I sort of just made up the tote pattern as I went along. I felt like I’ve made enough bags that I would be successful. I added little gussets to the bottom so it stands on it’s own.

I managed to sew this entire thing, with my daughter in the room, and she never once came over to see what I was doing. I think it will be a great surprise under the tree on Christmas!

You know the saying, Good Things Come to Those Who Wait? Well, the wait is over for those of you that have been looking for the pattern to my Cutting Edge quilt.

I made this quilt about 6 months ago for Free Spirit Fabrics to display at Spring Quilt Market. I also made them a pattern sheet to go with it. I was hoping that it would become available to you, in some way, but had almost given up hope.

Then a few weeks ago, I received an email from Modern Quilts Unlimited letting me know that the pattern would appear in the premier issue of the magazine! To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. For one, I knew the news would make a lot of very happy readers on the blog. I still get comments and emails about that quilt, lots of people hoping for the pattern. It also was a huge surprise and awesome honor to be in this magazine. It is FULL of great quilts – including that stunning one on the cover by none other than my Sewing Summit coteacher Kati Spencer.

A bit about the magazine. It is really beautiful. The pages are nice and thick, very high quality. It’s a quarterly magazine, this first issue is Fall 2012. You can order a subscription online (although that would start with the next issue). But if you want a copy of this one, you should be able to find it at Barnes and Noble, JoAnns, and some local quilt shops. It sounds like from their Facebook page that they expect it to be at those shops by November 1st.

And on an unrelated note…those of you that subscribe to my blog via e-mail have probably noticed something new! For many of you – it’s finally working again. I had outgrown my old (free) service which was preventing most of you from getting e-mail notifications of new posts. I’ve signed up for a fancy new service so you will now be receiving pretty emails for my blog posts. If you are interested in signing up so you don’t miss anything, you can either do it in the right hand column of the page (above my sponsors) or by clicking here. This is probably the best way to make sure you don’t miss any posts. I know a lot of you follow me on Facebook, but because I don’t pay Facebook to promote my posts, they only appear in about 20% of your feeds. So the e-mail subscription is nice!

And if you just want to stop by from time to time, that’s ok too. Be sure to visit by Thursday though, I will be posting a new block tutorial for Quilting Gallery’s Glorious Autumn Block Party. Here’s a sneak peek for you.

Happy sewing everyone!

A couple weeks ago I received a fat eighth bundle of Oakshott Cottons to play with from Michael Oakshott. I’m going to guess that many of you have maybe seen some of these fabrics around in blogland but haven’t had a chance to work with them yet. That was the case for me at least.

Oakshott Cottons is a family run British business which ethically manufacturers their fabrics in India. They have a photo story on their website that was really fascinating for me. I highly encourage you to check it out!

I sort of assumed Oakshott cottons were similar to the Kaffe Fasset shot cottons or Moda Crossweaves. This is partially true – however these have proven so much easier to work with from a quilter’s point of view. While the others seemed to slide and stretch a lot, these just seem much sturdier when piecing. And that’s in a good way. This color bundle is Lipari – Fat 8ths Pack. This bundle has been shot with black to create beautiful jewel tones.

I decided to pair some of the fabrics with Tula Pink’s Nightshade fabric for Halloween. I’m actually not sure I will get this quilt done for Halloween (this year) – I’ve been so busy prepping for the Sewing Summit! But I have started cutting. I’m using my Prism quilt pattern, but I decreased the block size down to 6″.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me on Flickr and Instagram where they can get these fabrics. Oakshott does deliver to the US via FedEx from their website. Of course international shipping can be pricey. It might be a good idea to pair up with a couple friends and place and order and have them all shipped together. Happy sewing everyone!

We are running a bit behind on the Traveling Quilts Bee, but I am happy to have Round Four to share with you today! For this month, I worked on Monica of The Happy Zombie‘s block. I love everything Monica does, so you know, no pressure!

Monica started her quilt with this section – the house, surrounding star and perfect embroidery. Dan added the Flying Geese, Penny added the undies (can’t forget those on your travels! Also a little birdie told me these might be coming out as a pattern in her Sew-Ichigo shop later!) and Jacquie added the HZTV (Happy Zombie TV) section.

I decided to carry on with the “Travels” theme and add an airplane! I used Rashida‘s latest tutorial for the Art Gallery Fat Quarter Gang, Fly With Me. My only issue was I didn’t check my scale when I printed it, so everything printed a bit smaller than it was supposed to. It just involved a little extra trimming to make seams match, but wasn’t a serious issue.

I picked a rainbow of colors to coordinate with Monica’s original block. (I switched out the purple at the last minute). I included some prints from Violet Craft’s Madrona Road because I knew Monica and Violet were friends and thought she would like seeing some of that fabric in her quilt. The plane is a black and white text print from my local quilt shop.

I hope you enjoy your new block Monica! This quilt is now with Ashley where I’m sure she will add something amazing.