Pumpkin Carving Party at Country Lane

This past week I made a dress for my daughter out of Bari J's newest line, Country Lane. She got the chance to wear it yesterday to church and then to a pumpkin carving party at our friends' house. It was the perfect choice for a beautiful fall day if you ask me....

favorite. project. ever.

This has to be my most favorite project I've ever done. It's from Anna Maria Horner's latest book, Handmade Beginnings. First of all, I LOVE this book. It has so many great projects in it, and I have neither a baby nor am I expecting one, so don't be fooled by the title. It's truly for anyone. When I saw this project, I knew I HAD to do it! I knew my little girl would love it, and she does. The pattern is for the quilt, the baby, and diapers to fit the baby. I must say that I loved making the diapers. I loved doing the hand stitching for the baby's face and hair. But most of all I loved making the quilt. The 4 blocks were foundation pieced, a technique I had not tried before, but found to be very easy and satisfying. I love color and it was so fun to put so much color into each block. All fabric I used was from Anna Maria's collections. I even mixed in some voiles with the cotton, and a tiny bit of her home decor. Do I even have to say how much I love her fabric? Just got in some of her newest line, Innocent Crush. Sigh. Can't wait to get started sewing with it.

Wow. I know, it's been a long time. I've been out of the loop for quite a while. I have a good excuse, though. We started homeschooling our kids this year. It was a very difficult decision that we put off until the last minute, but we are in week 9 now and although we have hard days (just like with anything else), it is going really well. More on that later though. I just wanted to peek my head up out of my 'cave' and let you know that I am still out here and slowly but surely, I am carving out little bits of time in my new schedule to sew.

What I am sharing today is the Madison Bag, a pattern I tested for Trish Preston. It's a great bag and I love how it turned out. Trish is actually about to debut her first line of patterns, which includes the Madison Bag, at the upcoming quilt market in Houston, last weekend of October. She has a sneak peak of them here, on her blog. I must say that ALL 14 of them look fantastic. I'm really impressed with how professional they look and the photography for the covers is amazing and makes you want to buy all of them! I'm so glad I had the honor to test 2 of them for her. Please, go check them out!