Sara made this adorable quilt for the Spring Blooms mini swap.

She then created this fabulous tutorial on how she did it: 3D Pinwheels Tutorial.

I definitely need to give these a try .. wouldn’t they look adorable on a friendship bag?

Who couldn’t use more tote bags?

Most of the grocery stores here in Ottawa now charge 5 cents per plastic bag. Ouch! Oh well, it’s better for the environment to use fabric bags. The fact that I’m getting close to having to buy bags to dispose of kitty litter is not lost on me.

Anyway, here’s a super cute free pattern from the All People Quilt site, Easy, Breezy Tote.

Be sure to grab their PDF version for your files too, as free patterns seem to disappear.

Finished size is 13-3/4x12x4″. Would make a great diaper bag too.

I had the pleasure of meeting Phyllis Dobbs at Spring Market. She’s as exciting in real life as her fabulous designs. Here’s a picture of her and I, and you can see a glimpse of us in this video.

Phyllis has designed this cute little quilted tote bag using her latest fabric line, Its a Dog’s Life. I just love her whimsical designs.

During the Spring Blooms swap, Gabi Tietz posted this adorable mini quilt and the little purse.

I emailed her to ask her about it. She told me that her and a group of friends have been making these friendship bags to share with each other. They’ve been having a great time.

Gabi suggested this would make a great swap. I agreed.

Shortly after our exchange, I heard about International Friendship Day and decided this would be perfect day to start the Friendship Bag Swap.

One of my main goals for the Quilting Gallery site has always been to bring together quilters from around the world. I’ve always wanted this site to be very International-based. It’s through the experiences of all quilters everywhere that we can each learn and be inspired by one another.

I’m very pleased to host this Friendship Bag Swap. It’s a small project, with lots of room for creative goodness. Head on over to read the guidelines and then register to participate. Here’s the list of participants.

To get you started, Rachel Griffith put together this fabulous tutorial.

Registration closes August 20, 2009 and I’ll send out partner information by August 25, 2009. The deadline to mail your friendship bag is October 6, 2009.

Please don’t email me to register, instead use the registration form provided.

When I was looking at the Summertime swap Flickr group, I noticed this gorgeous creation by Stacey. It reminded me of friendships throughout the world. It’s a free pattern from Barbara Skjønberg from Norway, entitled All the Children of this World.

If you’d like, here’s the code to use the swap graphic on your blog.

A HUGE thank you to Rachel for creating the tutorial for this swap. You are very talented and very generous!

Congratulations to #47 Rachel for winning the gorgeous fabrics in last week’s give-away. Thanks to Lori of Hand Dyed Fabrics by Lori for the wonderful donation.

This week’s Friday give-away of 15 gorgeous 1930′s fat quarters has been donated by Jane’s Fabrics.

She started her on-line fabric store in 2004. She loves bright happy colors, but also specializes in 1930 reproduction prints. Her love of fabric comes from her mother who was a sewer and her great-grandmother who was a quilter. She took that love of fabric and now sell as janesfabrics.com where she specializes in 100% cotton fabrics for all your quilting and sewing needs. Jane has a blog too.

For your chance to win the 15 pack of 1930′s fat quarters, please leave a comment below. Contest closes Thursday, July 23rd, 2009. One lucky winner will be randomly chosen.

UPDATE: This contest is now closed. Congratulations to #4 Wendy Culbreath for winning the gorgeous fat quarters. Thanks again to Jane’s Fabrics for the donation. Check out the most recent Friday Give-Away.

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Judy’s just posted her latest FREE stash busting project. She’ll post the next steps every few days. Isn’t it gorgeous! I love it. The idea is to use up stash, so you can make room for more pretty fabrics.

Be sure to check out the no waste flying geese tutorial [PDF file]. I haven’t tried this method before, but will give it a whirl this afternoon.

The first step in Judy’s quilt uses 4 7/8″ squares, just shy of a 5″ charm, and I have lots of those already cut for myself. If this turns out well, it might be a good project for the charms I received from the Charms for Charity contest.

Going to go check out my stash of brights that I could use… not that I have time for another project, but this looks like fun!

Oh, and it’s Quiltathon weekend too. Be sure to post your progress on Judy’s site.