I couldn’t help myself! Have you seen Rae‘s newest pattern for Big Butt Baby Pants? Totally cute, and even though we don’t have a little one to model such cute pants, I still felt the need to try them out.

You might remember that I have previously made dresses using Rae’s free pattern for the Itty Bitty Baby Dress, so I already knew that her instructions would be great and this would be a quick and easy project. And indeed it was! These pants turn out perfectly, each and every time, and I love that Rae’s provided so many variations – pockets, coordinating cuffs, ruffles – too much fun! I made the 0-3 month size, since I think anything teeny tiny is totally cute. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone with a baby this size – photos of a baby wearing these pants would surely be cuter!

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On another note, I’d love to take a moment to welcome my newest sponsors — welcome, welcome!!

Lola Pink Fabrics is run by Jennifer and Janet, a mother-daughter team who love fabrics and have turned that love into a business. They have a great selection of fabrics, including a lot of organic fabrics, sold by the yard, 1/2 yard or fat quarter. They also carry some great patterns, including one of my favorites, the Shearwater Kaftan (next up on my list – maybe the Sweet Dreams PJ pants… it’s time for some new fall PJs!). You may want to also check out their sale section – they currently a lot of sale fabrics listed, including Heather Bailey’s Nicey Jane, Sandi Henderson’s Meadowsweet, and Tanya Whelan’s Dolce.

Fabric Crush is a great shop in Seattle run by Sarah Stine. I was initially introduced to this great shop through Sew Katie Did‘s blog. Katie teaches some classes there, including a fun half square triangle class, and I always admired the photos of this lovely shop. I’ve only been to Seattle once, and it was before I started to sew, but I’d love to go back, and I’d definitely make a point to stop at this wonderful shop! Sarah has recently opened an online shop for those of you not in the Seattle area. You can purchase fabric by the yard, kits, patterns or fat quarter bundles. Not everything is listed in the online shop at this time, but if you see something you’d like, Sarah’s happy to do special orders. I did spy a great FQ bundle of Katie Jump Rope, as well as a couple older Anna Maria Horner prints, now at a great sale price!

Above All Fabric is a great shop with a great variety of fabrics! Melanie carries all of your favorite designers, and in addition, she has a great selection of apparel fabrics, including knits, flannel, minky, and even velveteen. Her shop is easy to navigate, and she gives you lots of sorting and searching options. I’m happy to see that Melanie has a number of my favorite Moda Bella Solids. I will definitely be stocking up! Plus, you can order as much as you want and it all ships for just $5! Melanie also has a great blog, which I’ve been reading for some time now.

Whipstitch has been a favorite since I started sewing. Deborah carries all my favorite fabrics and has great customer service. I particularly love her mix and match your own bundle listings – great for people like me who don’t want to wait for a custom listing! She also has recently opened a brick and mortar shop in Atlanta, which is on my ‘must visit’ list. I also thoroughly enjoy Deborah’s blog, as she is truly a wealth of sewing knowledge! And did you know she’s written a book? I’m looking forward to getting a copy – I have a feeling it will become my go-to resource.

And last, but certainly not least, Sew Fresh Fabrics is a great Etsy shop run by Peg and Becca, self proclaimed fabric addicts and quilting fiends! They carry a lot of wonderful fabrics, including Laurie Wisbrun’s entire line of both Tufted Tweets and Urban Circus, and also Lizzy House’s latest, Castle Peeps (among many others!). I love that they also carry a great selection of solids – both Kona and Essex. And for those of us who love a deal, they’re offering free shipping in the US (or 1/2 off international) on all orders over $40. Be sure to keep up with Peg and Becca on their blog for fun giveaways and info on new arrivals!

And as always, a big thank you to my existing advertisers – Jodi at Fabric Shoppe, Charlie & Lindsay at Hawthorne Threads, Laurie at Scarlet Fig, Cynthia at Fabricworm, Jennifer at Monaluna, Kathy at Pink Chalk Fabrics, Randi at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics, Pam at Mad About Patchwork, Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works and last, but certainly not least, Phiona at my favorite local shop, Nido!

I guess cleaning can sometimes unearth some fun things you’ve totally forgotten about! Back when I was working on a quilt for Laurie‘s new Tufted Tweets line, I made up several different types of blocks before Laurie and I agreed on the design which ended up being the Unfurnished quilt. These blocks were set aside and I came across them the other day during some organizing.

I had most of the pieces already cut, so it was quick work to put them together into this square little quilt! This design is a lattice design, which I paper pieced (mainly because I enjoy paper piecing… it certainly could be sewn without it). I had wanted to make something like this for quite a while, and you might remember that I ended up making two such lattice quilts out of Flea Market Fancy a few months ago (one finished, one still in the unfinished pile!). Anyway… I think this one’s pretty fun – I love how the Tufted Tweets prints look all mixed together (previously I’ve only used these prints in the separate colorways), and I love the gray background with that little bit of white.

The backing is already done, so hopefully this one won’t languish too long in the unfinished pile!

I know some of you thought I was being a tease by showing you only the binding on my latest finished quilt earlier this week, but to be honest, I had just finished it and I was pretty excited to have it done. Making a queen sized quilt is quite a feat! They’re also pretty large, so I had to wait until I could find myself some volunteers to hold it up for photos.

You may remember that this is the quilt I’ve been working on for Erich, who was the one to make me the absolutely gorgeous sewing table. We worked out a little trade, and I’m so happy about it, since I don’t know that I could otherwise afford his woodworking prices! Plus, trading is fun – I love having something he’s made in my home and I certainly hope that he and my sister enjoy having a handmade quilt on their bed!

Whitney selected Denyse’s Hope Valley line which we paired with Kona Coal (her solid of choice, and a good one for a more masculine quilt!). I adjusted the measurements of my Unfurnished quilt to work for a queen sized quilt, adding a column and increasing the width of each column. I love that it works out so that there are three columns along the mattress and 1 column on each side.

For the backing I used a lot of Kona Coal, with an offset pieced section to mimic the pattern from the front. I think it will also make for a fun change should they tire of the pattern on the front!

I’m really happy to have this one done, and I’m even happier that I managed to get it to Erich before the nights really started to get cold!

As much as I love large quilts, I think I’ll be taking a little break before I attempt another!

(oh, kind of unrelated, but I forgot to mention it previously – I now have threaded comments, so if you’ve asked a question, check back for an answer.)

Alissa is holding a fundraiser on her blog this week for Action Kivu, an organization in eastern Congo that runs a sewing workshop for victims of the conflict there. (You can read all the details on her blog.)

Photo by Candice Knezevic/The Enough Project

Action Kivu is a homegrown operation founded by Congolese educator and interpreter Amani Matabaro Tom and his seamstress wife, Amini Bukanda. The program teaches women to sew, knit and embroider so they can support themselves and their families.

Photo by Candice Knezevic/The Enough Project

Sewing creates such a strong personal link between all of us, the online sewing community and these Congolese women, so if you can, please take 5 minutes to watch this powerful video and think about what you might be able to donate to help make a difference in these lives.

Every little bit counts! Let’s help Alissa exceed her $7500 goal – she’s already raised over $4000 this week!

Donating is easy – just click over to this post to do so. As an added bonus, by donating at least $25 you’ll be automatically entered to win some fabulous fabrics!

I really love it, and I hope the new recipients will as well!

(full reveal later this week)

All this organizing has led to a pile of fabrics that I think I’m ready to part with. I’ll be listing it all as time permits throughout the rest of the week. So if you’re looking to add to your stash, take a look at the shop to see if there’s anything you’d like!

Update: Thanks to everyone who has purchased fabric! I’ll be listing a few additional pieces today and then all packages will be mailed out tomorrow morning.

I was really happy to see that the new organic line, Monaco, by Jennifer Moore of Monaluna has a number of really great boyish prints (ah, those scooters!). I like these prints because they lend themselves well for a baby boy quilt, but would also be perfect for a gender neutral quilt.

I decided to go with my original Spotted Squares design (done previously here and here), because I love how it shows off a good portion of the prints. Since I was using fat quarters of each of the prints, I went with 9″ squares, which results in a pretty perfect baby quilt size (about 43″ x 51″ or so).

And now I just have to pick and purchase a backing… I love the scooters, but I also think the turquoise double dot print would make a nice backing – what do you all think?

I’ve been wanting to make one of these plus quilts since I saw this one. You already know of my love of patchwork quilts and 3 1/2 ” squares, so it wasn’t too far of a jump to rearrange the squares into this fun plus pattern. My initial thought was that I’d use just one print, the Amy Butler pink coriander, and pair it with lots of solids in shades of gray. Turns out that the gray solids I have here don’t really play so nicely together, so instead I started pulling out various shades of pink solids. Then I discovered two lovely Liberty of London prints I had on hand that also included the same dark pink as the Amy Butler print. And from there it was only a matter of time before I had added in a whole variety of oranges, yellows and a light green. The end result is a bright, summer sherbet-y bunch of colors… perfect for August, I think!

In between relaxing at the beach I also had a chance to take a quick trip to Blueberry Hill to visit with Heather Ross, Liesl Gibson, and the weekend sewing group. Unfortunately my camera remained in the car the whole time, but hopefully there will be some photos popping up from their weekend – looks like it was a great group and I’m sure they all had a blast!

I’ll leave you with this photo of fabric squares, which shows the only crafting I did this weekend. Hopefully these squares will transform themselves into a quilt top this week!

As with the first, this one contains 16 blocks, arranged 4 blocks by 4 blocks. I think I burn out after about 12 of these blocks, then I push myself to make a few more to make the quilt large enough. You definitely won’t find me making one any larger than this!

I’m looking forward to seeing this quilted. I’m still debating about how to quilt it – I’m a little concerned about quilting over the section where the points all come together… it’s a bit lumpy!

(If you’re trying out the starburst tutorial, you might want to play around with the direction you iron the seams – I ironed mine open, but I probably should have tested ironing the seams in alternating directions.)

In other news, some of you might have noticed my updated blog design (if you’re reading this through a reader, click through to check out the new design!). My sister, who hates change, urged me to keep it as it was, but I’m hoping that these new changes will make it easier to find some of my older projects. You can now find tabs along the top for tutorials, quilts, clothing & household goods. At the moment, quilts can be sorted by most recent, type, or most commented.

In the future, these changes will hopefully speed up the site, loading images faster (not in place yet, but hopefully soon!). I’ve had a few problems with images overlapping for people with smaller screen resolutions, so this new design should help with that.

I hope you’ll like these new changes, but of course if you find things that aren’t working correctly, do let me know!