Baking Sampler

I have a group of friends who like to bake. And they like to try out new recipe books. Every couple months they get together to do a Baking Sampler Day. They invited me to join them and we've had a lot of fun trying different recipes like Martha's cupcakes and Magnolia's sweet goodness.This month we're making 6 inch cakes from Miette, a bakery in San Francisco. And I'm hosting the fun. I wanted to make these great friends a little something to take home with them to use in their future baking endeavors. Thus these hot pads were born.
I made 7 (there are only 6 of us, but I wanted there to be an extra option for the ladies to choose from). Each hot pad is ~ 8 3/4" square. Fabrics used: Suburbia (kitchen items), Bliss (red and aqua dots), It's a Hoot (pink w/grey trees), Sweetwater (grey w/white flowers, Grand Revival (green dots) and Be Merry (stripes). I also used Insul-Bright for the batting.
The backs are all the Suburbia fabric which was the focal fabric in this whole project. I saw this fabric and knew exactly what I wanted to do. Now I'm wishing I would have purchased enough to make myself an apron.
This one is my favorite. I just love the tiny patchwork squares.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

After spending 2 incredible weeks on the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon last month I've been slow getting back into the swing of regular life. But slowly my brain is starting to work again, and that generally translates into creating.
This fun banner is for a friend whose little guy will be 1 next month. I picked out colors to match his birthday shirt and can't wait to see how the whole ensemble comes together.
These cards and removable flower clips will be my contribution to card group next week. I loved making the flowers and now I'm trying to think of as many different ways to utilize them as I can.
And this gorgeous collection of fabrics arrived in my mail box a last week. I've been admiring Going Coastal since the spring when everyone had pictures of it from quilt market. I can't wait to dive into them.