sweet as honey blog tour

Welcome to my stop on the Sweet as Honey blog tour!

Sweet as Honey is the latest fabric collection from Bonnie Christine, a fellow North Carolinian, whom I met last year at Quilt Market in Portland. Her newest fabric line celebrates nature, wildlife, and flowers in a pretty and colorful palette, and is printed on Art Gallery Fabrics' silky cotton base cloth.

I'm excited to help celebrate the launch of this new collection, and for my stop on the tour, I decided to make a simple tote bag---perfect for trips to the farmers market, library, and beach this summer!

For the outside, I used plain canvas and natural cotton webbing, and for the interior, I used Bonnie's sunny, yellow print, Honey House Sunflower.

I love the summery pop of color on the inside, especially when paired with fresh tulips!

It was so much fun working with Bonnie's fabric, and I can't wait to incorporate it into some future quilts. Looking for more inspiration? Be sure to check out yesterday's post from Barb at Knack Studios featuring beautifully recovered chairs, and tomorrow's post from Karen at Celebrate Life.

happy weekend!

Have any fun plans this weekend? I'm off to spend time with family and friends in New Hampshire, and will be dreaming up a project for the fabric pictured above for my stop on the Sweet as Honey Blog Tour later this month. In the meantime, here are some interesting fabric-related posts I've come across recently and wanted to share:

Happy to see the return of sewing jobs to the US. I hope this is just the beginning!

Fascinating to see all of the steps that go into producing a t-shirt.

This year's Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition has been announced! Are you going to enter?

Liberty fabrics were originally hand-printed with wooden blocks.

Love this photo essay on US textile mills.

Have you seen this video featuring the very talented quilter, Lindsay Stead? Her hand quilting is beautiful!

I hope you have a great weekend!

do. Good Stitches: Yellow Cross Quilt

In December, I was the quilter for my circle of do. Good Stitches. I decided to keep it simple, since it was the holiday season, and I asked our group members to make two cross blocks, using any shade of solid yellow.

I love, love, love how this quilt turned out! The yellow crosses are so cheery and happy, and I'm so inspired to work with this palette more. I quilted it with a crosshatch pattern in yellow thread.

For the backing, I used a Marimekko print my mother-in-law got on super sale from the Crate and Barrel outlet. It's a wide sateen fabric, which meant that I didn't have to piece it, which I really enjoyed. For the binding, I used a striped, vintage-looking print that's been in my stash for ages---it was nice to finally use it up.

I donated the quilt to my local chapter of Project Linus this past weekend, so it's now off to its new home.