My 2025 Thankful Sale is here! Sewing patterns and leather 20% off!

Above: Oxbow Tote pattern, available in PDF or Paper! Click here to read the blog post.

Starting today I’m having my 14th annual sale on all my sewing patterns and leather in my shop! Yayyyyy! And I’m also having Free Shipping to US customers for orders of $99 or more!

From now through Monday, December 1st (11:59pm CDT) 2025 all patterns and leather items* (all leather straps, leather snap tabs for the minimalist wallet, zipper pulls, and leather patches) are 20% off. No coupon code is necessary. Discount will be automatically applied at checkout. This also includes my Everyday Essentials booklet!

*For the leather items, please note that the discount applies while supplies last. I’ve stocked as much as I could get cut. If you’re looking at getting a certain color/length be sure to stop by early! I’ll try and restock some as the week continues on, so stop back if you don’t see what you want at first.

No coupon code necessary. Discount will be automatically applied at checkout. 

I also have a few fun items that are NEW to the shop:

• Half yard pre-cut pieces of my Orchard Run fabric collection
• Relisted my grab bag webbings, they include 1″-wide and 1.5″-wide pre-cut (4 yard lengths) in a variety of colors at a super deal
• New colors of my decorative leather zipper pulls!
• Check out my hand-stamped dot grid notebooks (makes a fun stocking stuffer)!

Hope you have a wonderful week & weekend! Thank you so much for being a part of this supportive and encouraging community! I appreciate you all every single day!

I had the opportunity to make this Persimmon Firefly Tote for the Ruby Star Society quilt market booth and their lookbook. Persimmon is an upcoming collection by Rashida Coleman Hale! It’s so adorable and the colors are so vibrant!

Combining the Lining & Accent

This is the Tote size of my Firefly Tote pattern (the larger of the two sizes included in the pattern, here’s a blog post with both sizes for comparison). For this sample we went with using just two fabrics instead of the three fabric combo. I really like how it turned out. It still features a great combo of fabric! For this I just added the Lining fabric requirement to the Accent fabric requirement and cut everything from the Persimmon fabric. Easy enough!

Canvas & Quilting Cotton

I really like the way Ruby Star puts out collections with canvas and quilting cotton (plus some other fun substrates, too!). As a bag maker, it’s fun to be able to combine the durability of canvas and still have a coordinating quilting cotton to use for the accent or lining pieces. And because the collections all vibe together, it’s easy to come up with all sorts of combinations!

Project Details:

Looking for the Firefly videos? Here are the links to the sew-along videos in case you need them.

• Pattern: Firefly Tote pattern, Tote size (PDF and paper available)
• Fabric: 
  • Persimmon (coming in 2026, can pre-order now!) in canvas for the Exterior, and Persimmon in a quilting weight for the Lining/Accent both are from the Persimmon collection by Rashida Coleman Hale for Ruby Star Society
  • Here’s the google search with a bunch of Pre-Order options!
• Hardware & supplies:
  • 7″ zip (Cream, front pocket)
  • chicago screws
  • drawstring cord (Cookie)
  • 1″-wide  webbing (for the handles, in color Cookie) or you can use 1″-wide leather handles (Rustic) from my shop (18″ length set for the Project size, 28″ length set for the Tote size)
  • decorative leather pull (Pecan) or use waxed cord, both available in my shop

This Dragon Range Backpack was a fun step in a direction that I don’t typically gravitate to. As I got to cutting and sewing, I really enjoyed working with Sarah’s fabrics. There’s a beautiful amount of detail that goes into the prints she designs. They really shine when you get to see the finished product come to life!

Upcoming Fabrics

I made this Range Backpack as a sample for the Ruby Star Society lookbook for the upcoming Fireflow collection. It features the upcoming Speckle Canvas for the Contrast bottom (designed by Rashida Coleman Hale), Sarah’s gorgeous designs on canvas for the main exterior and her feathers design on quilting cotton for the lining fabric (which also includes the straps/hang loops, etc).

Side Release Buckle Closure

For the closure, I chose to use a side release buckle! I hadn’t sewn a Range Backpack in a while, so as I was digging through my hardware I found a side release buckle and it finally clicked in my memory that I could use it for the closure AND that I had a video. Yay! Lucky for me and you, I had recorded a video back in 2017 on how to make the modification to the Range Backpack pattern. I’d say I did a pretty good job back then, it was an easy modification and I really like how it looks for this sample. Be sure to check it out on my YouTube channel!

Project Details:

• Pattern: Range Backpack (PDF and paper versions available in my shop)
• New! I added a new listing for a side release buckle, in case you want to make one, too! So check it out in my shop. They’re affordable, easy to install and easy to use. Plus, be sure to check out that video on the how-to.
• Fabric:
  • Fireglow canvas by Sarah Watts for Ruby Star Society (for Exterior fabric)
  • Fireglow quilting cotton by Sarah Watts (for Lining fabric)
  • Speckled Canvas by Rashida Coleman Hale for Ruby Star Society for the Contrast Bottom
• Interfacing:
  • I used Emmaline Bag’s EB-Fuse in Medium in place of the Pellon 809 for the Medium-weight fusible interfacing, I highly recommend this one if you don’t like or can’t find Pellon 809
• Other hardware/supplies used:
  • if you want to go with the traditional d-ring closure, I have kits here
  • if you’re using the Side Release Buckle, you can use this kit for the strap hardware! It’s for the Making Backpack, but that way you won’t have the d-rings
  • brass/black 8″ zipper
  • black leather decorative zipper pulls