I've been spending the last couple of days working with some of the gorgeous prints from the Jungle Ave fabric collection that Sara Lawson from Sew Sweetness sent to me. This fabric is a new, limited edition, collection with Art Gallery Fabrics that will come out this June (2014), and I was lucky enough that Sara asked me to share it with you!

Jungle Ave Collection

I have to admit that Art Gallery Fabrics are hard to find way up here in the cold white North... and I'm hoping that will change soon, because these fabrics feel so good in your hand, and I just love working with these cottons.  It's beautiful stuff! I only used 3 prints out of 8, so make sure you check out the rest of the collection. (There are also 2 knits and 1 voile as well.)

I've got a new bag pattern that is soon to be released, and I thought it would be great to try it in Sara's fabric. The Totes Ma Tote bag is a trendy looking tote, featuring adjustable handbag straps, attached by buckles into 4 shiny grommets that just give the bag that professional look. I've also included instructions on how to add a nice shiny metal bag label of your own. These can be found on my website here. The best thing about this bag is - it's easy and fast to make with BIG results!


The tote pattern actually has a zipper opening, a zipper pocket, slip pockets and a large internal side pocket that will fit an e-reader, tablet, or even just your pesky bills. We need to keep them out of sight ;).   In this version, I just wanted to make it up quickly and tried it with a magnetic snap opening and it works wonderfully.  Stay tuned for the release of the Totes Ma Tote!



 The scraps from the Totes Ma Tote bag, were enough to make something else so I dug out an idea that has been wanting to be a free tutorial on here for quite some time, and finally put it together. It only has one pattern piece, took about 7 minutes to cut fabric, and about 10 minutes to sew, and now I have a great thread and/or scrap basket to take to sewing guild meetings with me, or just keep on my sewing desk. I'm calling it the Scraptastic Basket. Kind of a silly name, but no sillier than "Totes Ma Tote", so it will fit right in.

A few months ago (or more), I started a very, very easy strip quilt and I finally finished quilting and binding it during "Selfish Sewing Week".


This is just so basic, but the fabrics and colours in the "Simply Style" collection, designed by V & Co. for Moda, just make me so happy when I look at them... I really wanted to just let them be the focus. Plus, I wanted a quick finish ;).

Strips sewn together before quilting.

I just stitched the whole jelly roll together as it came off of the roll, but I did have to pull out a couple of the blues as there were just too many of those.


The end result is a very, very long lap quilt and the proportions are kind of odd.  My husband did wonder why it was so skinny, but I showed him how we, with our little boy in the middle, could all sit on the couch and read and all be covered, so then he decided it wasn't too bad!


It's a good couch quilt for us, however all of those bright colours don't really go with my teal and yellow accent colours right now so when I "throw" it for the day, I show the back side of it and not the front. I like the back side too!


Although... let me ask you this:  How long can you quilt with the wrong colour of thread in your bobbin before you notice?  I can use almost a whole bobbin before I find that I have a dark, dark (almost black) green thread in my bobbin case, when I am supposed to have cream.  Ya, I'm pretty good.  I didn't feel like ripping it out, so I just refilled the bobbin with the same colour and kept on going.  I was HUGELY disappointed, but I've gotten used to that terrible quilting on the back now and pretend that it's supposed to be like that. Ya, I meant to do that....

The backside, quilted with dark thread. BOOOO!

Thank you for reading!!