Happy Monday! This past weekend I took over the All People Quilt instagram account @allpeoplequilt. So today I'm sharing the highlights in case you missed it! If you've landed here from the takeover, you'll find links to everything I mentioned over the weekend! :)


I started off the weekend by introducing myself and sharing some of my favorite drawstring bag projects!
- Lined Drawstring Bag Tutorial
- Lined Drawstring Bag Video Tutorial
- Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern
- Lined Drawstring Bag Expansion Pattern
- Cotton Twill Tape
- Round Wooden Beads


Next up, I chatted about my love of working with vintage sheets in my quilting!
- How to Identify, Shop for and Sew with Vintage Sheets
- Giant Vintage Star Quilt Tutorial
- Giant Vintage Star Quilt Pattern


On Saturday I started by sharing a tour of my sewing room!
- Sewing Room Organization Series
- 2019 Sewing Room Tour


Next, I highlighted my Bear Paw Pillows Pattern!
- Bear Paw Pillows in Quilts & More Winter 2019
- Bear Paw Pillows Pattern


I shared some photos of Dusty! :)


On Sunday I chatted about one of my favorite designs, the plus quilt!
- Modern Plus Quilt Tutorial
- Arithmetic Quilt Pattern


Next, I had to share about my stash tracking. What can I say, I'm still really into it!
- How I Track My Fabric and Yarn Yardage
- Stash Management: What I've Learned Tracking My Fabric Yardage
- New and Improved Stash Tracking Worksheet (with Formulas!)


Finally, I signed off by highlighting my collection of Workshop Tote Bags!
- Workshop Tote Pattern
- Workshop Tote Sew Along

Back to regularly scheduled blog content on Wednesday. Thanks for following along!

Happy Sewing!

Friday Favorites 08

Happy Friday! It's time for another Friday Favorites post. Hope your week went well!

- I actually made my first fabric purchase of the year this week! I picked up some of this art gallery fabrics rayon* to make a dress.

- These pillows by Gabrielle Colville make me want to take up tufted rug making.

- How sweet are these little paintings by Jenean Morrison? It sounds like they'll be for sale in her retail location and online this weekend!

- This colorful mural by Shapes For the People is so cheerful. I'd love to get more creative with my paint choices!

- My big thrift find of the week was the Happy Isles Puzzle by The Magic Puzzle Company*. Their puzzles are super unique and have a fun surprise at the end.

- I'm really excited about these green twister echinacea seeds from Select Seeds that I ordered. I just couldn't resist that color combination!

- Made these four ingredient peanut butter cookies by Joy the Baker. Quick and delicious!

- I've been doing some woodworking this week (I'll share that project soon), and these corner clamps from Rockler I picked up last year have really made my life easier!

- This year one of my goals is to reevaluate our current systems for recycling, waste, etc. I want to get started composting this Spring, but something I did this week was take a big bag of plastic films and bags to the grocery store to recycle. Our Aldi has a bin in their vestibule. I used this website as a reference for what I could recyle there. Felt good!


- Dusty hanging out in the sewing room with me :)

Have a Great Weekend!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Ruler Paper Drawstring Bag + New Twill Tape

Happy Wednesday! I have some hope news and a couple of new project bags to share today!


First up, I am stocking two new styles of twill tape in my online shop! A plain black 1/2" wide twill tape and a black ruler twill tape! Twill is still my favorite thing to use for drawstring bags, I'm excited to have some new options available. I made two new bags to show them off!

You can find them both here: Cotton Twill Tape


I thought it would be cute to pair the ruler twill tape with a notebook themed drawstring bag! I pieced together this lined paper exterior for one side of the bag. I think it turned out pretty good! It was a good excuse to dig into my scrap bin.



I continued the theme with a blue striped lining fabric. I thought the accent fabric had kind of a composition notebook vibe to it. This is the project size bag from my Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern. Will be perfect for holding my next craft project!



For the plain black twill tape I finally cut into this strawberry black cat fabric I've been saving. It's a canvas weight fabric, so I paired it with some essex linen. It felt like a good opportunity to incorporate some variations from my Lined Drawstring Bag Expansion Pattern. I did the bottom accent variation and moved the drawstring opening closer to the top of the bag.


I like how the black twill highlights the black cats! I finished off both bags with some 3/4" round wooden beads.


In other shop news, I've refreshed all the photos for my patterns. Hopefully it will now be easier to tell which listings are for PDF downloads and which are for paper patterns!

Pattern: Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern, Lined Drawstring Bag Expansion Pattern
Notions: Cotton Twill Tape, Round Wooden Beads

Happy Sewing!

Friday Favorites 07

Happy Friday! It's time for another Friday Favorites post. Hope your week went well!

- We're having a mini wave of warm weather so I went on a short walk after taking down our outdoor lights. Right around the corner from our house I saw someone's snowdrops have emergered! It immediately put a smile on my face. I'm so excited for Spring!

- Discovered the work of Linda K. Smith (found via Instagram) this week. I love her use of color and the way she uses transparency in her pieces.

- I really want to make one of these quilted door stoppers by Deborah Fisher! I even have some plain cement bricks in the garage already.


- I finished reading The Two Towers*! I read The Hobbit many times as a kid and teenager, but this is my first time reading The Lord of The Rings. Now on to Return of the King.

- The big post refresh for this week was my Modern Plus Quilt Tutorial. It's going to be 12 years old this year, WHOA! I actually have fabrics pulled for another plus quilt. Hoping to get to it sometime this Spring!

- This past weekend we finally watched Hunt for the Wilderpeople (on Netflix). It's been on our list forever. We really loved it. It falls into my favorite category of movie/show, Whimsical. It feels right at home with things like Penelope, The Beautiful Fantastic, Good Omens, and Pushing Daises.


- Finally, after having my Cricut Maker* for years, I'm wading into cutting vinyl for labeling things. So far I have used it to label Dusty's automatic feeder, her food container, and our peanut container (one of Michael's favorite snacks). I still feel so fancy every time I successfully cut and transfer something!!

- One of Michael's coworkers gave us flan this week (Thanks Andrés, you make the best flan!) and it reminded me that I really want to try making this chocoflan from Smitten Kitchen.

- Speaking of chocolate, we picked up a bar of this peppermint chocolate recently and it is like a Thin Mint cookie but in chocolate bar form. We devoured it!


- Dusty loves to help me write my blog posts. :)

Have a Great Weekend!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Handmade Gifts: Zippered Pouches

Happy Wednesday! Today I have a couple pouches that I made as gifts to share! I love to give handmade gifts in general, but tend of give a lot of bags/pouches. They're just so useful! I actually made these back in 2020 (whoa!), and realized I never shared them here on the blog.

Both pouches were made with the Caravan Tote & Pouch Pattern by Anna Graham. I've made projects from this pattern once before, you can find that post here: Caravan Tote + Pouch


First up, a pretty purple pouch! My favorite thing about this pattern is all the little details. There are so many opportunities to add fabrics or a pop of color. I kept my details pretty subtle, but I still enjoyed picking them! I started by choosing this Ruby Star Society Canvas* print. I love the color, I made myself a drawstring project bag from this fabric too. I paired it with some plain Essex Linen* for the front pocket.


I went with a metal zipper and matching snaps. Metal zippers can be a little more complicated to work with (mostly that they're harder to shorten), but I love how it can elevate a project. Feels so fancy and professional!


For the interior I used a print from Lambkin*. This print was actually in my in-between bin, I wasn't sure I'd ever use it. But this pouch was perfect for it, and I'm happy I held on to it!


Second, a floral pouch! I used a leftover scrap of this Outback Wife* barkcloth. I made a Workshop Tote for myself with this print! I paired it with some Indikon Chambray* for the pocket. This pouch has such good textures!


Another metal zipper on this pouch too. I also added some leather strips to each pull to make them easier to open and close. And let's be honest, because it looks cute!


For the interior I used a print from Carkai*. I used this quilt for a quilt backing and I still have so much leftover. It has made it's way into many projects!

Pattern: Caravan Tote & Pouch Pattern by Anna Graham
Fabrics: Outback Wife*, Ruby Star Society Canvas*, Carkai*, Lambkin*, Essex Linen*, Indikon Chambray*.
Hardware: 10" Metal Zippers, Size 24 Antique Brass Metal Snaps.

Happy Sewing!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Friday Favorites 06

Happy Friday! I'm back with another Friday Favorites post. Hope your week went well!

- Very tempted by the Grounded collection by Alex Roda that Crimson Tate just stocked! The colors are really calling to me!

- I love the softness of Jolene Klassen's log cabin blocks (found via Instagram). The mix of prints is so cozy feeling.

- Hillary Goodwin's Log Cabin Schoolhouse quilt stopped me in my tracks (found via Instagram). Feels like the perfect mix of modern and traditional.


- In terms of sewing this week I've primarily been working on sorting, pressing and processing my scraps to make my new scrap quilt project go a little smoother. I did all the pressing in front of the tv downstairs, so I gave my panasonic cordless iron a real workout and it did great! This is the one I have*, which doesn't seem to be available anymore. This one* looks really similar though.

- It was an exciting week for baking! It was Michael's birthday and we made him some mini cakes using the hot cocoa cake recipe from the Zingerman's Bakehouse Cookbook*. They're really chocolatey and delicious!

- We tried a new recipe for dinner this week, these Vegan Sheet Pan Faijtas from Pinch of Yum. We made the the cashew queso too and we were surprised by how much we liked it!


- Lately I've been working on refreshing some old blog posts and this week the big one was my Giant Vintage Star Quilt Tutorial. I uploaded larger (and clearer) photos, remade some of the graphics and just generally updated the text and format to better match my current tutorial style.

- Once it is warm enough to work in the garage again, I really want to make floating frames for the couple of original art pieces that I have. This tutorial from The Sorry Girls (found via Youtube) makes it look so simple!

- I had some good thrifting finds this week, but my favorite was this shop cats puzzle*. Found it for $4 at Goodwill!


Dusty says hi! She was on my lap a lot this week.

Have a Great Weekend!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Winter Bear Paw Pillows

Happy Tuesday! Today I want to share a set of pillows I made for our home back in December!


I still love the sample pillows that I made for my Bear Paw Pillows Pattern a few years ago. The colors work for our home most of the year, but as Christmas approached this year, I realized I could get some use out of a different color scheme. On that note though, I didn't want them to only be Christmas pillows. So! I dug into my stash for ideas and came up with a combination that I think will work all winter long. They can work well for Christmas and also lean a little Valentine's Day. Honestly, in our house pink always works, no matter the season!


I had a lot of leftovers of this star print from Daisy Chain by Annabel Wrigley*. I used it as the backing for my Christmas Two by Four Quilt, and I had a lot of long skinny pieces leftover from that. Once I settled on that print, I chose some solids to match from my stash.


Then it was full steam ahead. I was able to pull together the background pieces and the backs of both pillows using only my backing leftovers, which felt really good! I often struggle to use those types of pieces, so I was happy these were used up for something so fun. The pillows came together in a day or two, so it wasn't long before I had them on display!



I didn't have a ton of the solids that matched, so I played with the color placement so that I could squeeze out enough pieces for both pillows. I like how they ended up like sisters instead of twins. The quilting is pretty minimal. I wanted the piecework to be the star of the show. Just some straight lines with an off-white thread.


I used a simple envelope closure for the pillow backings. I typically prefer to do a zippered closure, but I didn't have any zippers that matched or were the right size and I didn't want to order any. Plus the envelope style is so much quicker, it's hard to resist at times! Since I was making these in the midst of holiday sewing and the lined drawstring bag sew along, I was happy to save some time.


I happened to have enough yardage of another print from the same collection, so I used that as the binding. Ideally I would have used more of the solids, but I didn't have enough. So I made do! I think they're still cute.



Here are the finished pillows on our chairs in front of the fireplace around Christmas time! As I write this post today (in February), they're still out and look great. That reminds me, I should probably put up my Valentine's garland! Very pleased with how this project turned out. I love to make projects for our home, it's probably my favorite thing to make. I like having different options to switch between and making them myself gives me lots of home decor to choose from without breaking the bank!


Pattern: Bear Paw Pillows Pattern
Fabric: Daisy Chain by Annabel Wrigley* + solids from stash
Finished Size: 20"x20"

Happy Quilting!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.