You may have guessed by now that I love scrap quilts. I love how they look, I love the process of using leftover pieces to make something new, and I love writing patterns that work well with scraps. The Luna Quilt is a wonderful project for scraps because it uses a variety of smaller pieces and it is great for leftover jelly roll strips or binding strips.

Sorting through scraps, especially if you have a lot of them, can be a little bit overwhelming. If you are making your Luna Quilt scrappy, here are some options to think about.

• Use scraps from a single designer, manufacturer, or collection. That is what I will be doing! I am going to use Rifle Paper Co. scraps from several different collections. I really love the prints and am happy to have a project to use them up. If you don’t have enough scraps

A few years ago, I released my Sadie Quilt Pattern. I love this pattern, but I was never very happy with the photograph on the cover so making a new quilt and photographing it has been on my (very long) to do list. Then a few months ago, Ruby Star Society included the pattern in their lookbook using a fun new collection called Twirl and I knew it was time.

But of course, I couldn’t just take a new photo. Here are some things that have changed in the new pattern:

• Additional sizing. Yay! The original pattern had instructions for baby, lap, and twin sizes. The updated pattern adds queen AND king sizes.
• The instructions in the updated pattern are a little easier to follow. While the pattern itself isn’t tricky, there were some things that were a little tricky to explain and I feel like I have gotten a

Welcome to Week 1 of the Luna Quiltalong. This week we will be talking about fabric selection.

This quiltalong is for everyone, but it will include extra information for beginning quilters. Feel free to skip over posts that aren’t helpful to you if you have a few more quilting years under your belt. The whole quilting world can seem pretty overwhelming at first and I want to be as thorough as I can.

This week we will be talking about the different cuts of fabric you can use to make the quilt, how to pick fabric that will be successful, where to buy fabric, and whether to use prints or solids. Today we will start off by talking about quilt kits.

When I made my first quilt, I was absolutely terrified to buy the fabric. I did so much reading about where and how much to buy that I got

When it comes to quilting supplies, I am a bit of a minimalist but there are a few things that will make the process of making a quilt much more enjoyable. If you are a new quilter, don’t feel like you need to be every product that is shown to you — you don’t need much to get started. 

I am going to give you a list of items that I would consider to be essentials, and then a list of things that are optional but that I find to be helpful. For some items, I will give you an inexpensive option and an option that is a little more of an investment. 

Today we are going to be talking about background fabric. To be completely honest here, I am kind of a boring background fabric person. I like to put the focus on the feature fabrics and end up using a white, off-white, or gray most of the time.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this! Some of my favorite “safe” fabric colors are Kona Bone, Kona Snow, Pure Solids in White Linen, Cotton Couture Soft White, Kona Ash, Designer Essentials Winter White, Speckled in Dove, and Designer Essentials Natural. I use one of these colors as my background fabric at least 90% of the time.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you pick a background fabric for your quilt:

• If the fabric is a print, how will the print look once it is cut into pieces and sewn back together? Sometimes larger scale prints, large dots, or stripes

If you are new to quilting, buying fabric can be a little (lot) stressful. It is not cheap, but you are about to spend a whole bunch of your time working on a project so it is worthwhile to spend time (and a little money) buying something that you really love.

The fabric requirements for the Luna Quilt are listed in the pattern and I am going to walk you through what all of these mean, talking specifically about the lap size quilt but you can apply this to any quilt size. There are 4 different types of fabric that you will need : feature fabric, background fabric, binding fabric, and backing fabric.

FEATURE FABRIC

These are the colorful prints in my quilt. You can choose to make your quilt from scraps, fat quarters, or jelly roll strips (or really any cut of fabric you want, it just won’t match

Steamed clams without wine in a fragrant broth – delicious with hearty bread, pasta, or on their own! A simple steamed clams recipe that cooks in 10 minutes or less!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Zoup! Good, Really Good®. All opinions are 100% mine.

Over the summer, I stole away for 24 hours on the Sonoma coast, a much-needed getaway I, at the time, did not realize I needed. While sitting at a rugged wood table by a fire pit, watching the ocean lap the shore, I found myself fully content. In front of me was a bowl of steamed clams in a broth kissed by its briny aroma, a hunk of warm sourdough bread, and a napkin to help me stay neat after tucking into my feast. It was the perfect meal, simple and fresh, light but satisfying.

Steamed clams are one of

It’s time for a quiltalong! This time we will be quilting along to the Luna Quilt Pattern.  I am still working out some of the details, but here are the basics.

Who?

Anyone, but especially beginners. For a while, I have been wanting to write a series of “How to Make a Quilt” posts for new quilters and I am going to do them in conjunction with the quiltalong. There will be lots of videos showing how to do each step in the process. 

What?

A quiltalong is a way for a group of us to make the same quilt pattern together. The Luna Quilt pattern is jelly roll OR fat quarter OR scrap friendly so it is a great way to use up a bundle or jelly roll from your stash. I am also working to get a few kits available from shops if you would rather go that

It’s time for a sample sale. My ever-growing pile of finished quilts has gotten unmanageable and it is time to find a good home for them. Make sure to read through this entire post if you are interested in purchasing a quilt — there is a lot of important info in here!

If you are new here, you might wonder what a sample sale is. Every time I release a quilt pattern, I make 2 or 3 samples of the quilt to show how the pattern looks in different fabrics. While my family loves quilts, we just cannot use that many! I hold onto some quilts for trunk shows and to lend out to quilt shops, but it just doesn’t seem right to let so many quilts go unused so I do a sale a couple of times a year and sell the quilts at a low, sample sale price.

How did you get started in food blogging?

I was working on a Ph.D. in linguistics in Canada when my now ex-husband and I moved to Orlando, Florida. I ended up not finishing my Ph.D. because it started to feel like a chore. One day, I was listening to The Splendid Table, and they had on a