Happy Friday! It's time for another Friday Favorites post! Catch up on previous posts here: Friday Favorites Archives

- I hit the jackpot for vintage sheets this week! My sweet neighbor Halina grabbed a box filled with sheets for me while helping a friend clean out their house. They're all flats, which is extra awesome!

- This incredible selvedge quilt by Allie McCathren really caught my eye!

- Love this solids quilt by Ashley too!


- We went to the beach this past weekend for the first time in years! I bought these kid's shoes* to wear in the water and they were perfect. Here is a women's version* too.

- My friend Anna's beautiful new fabric line Around the Bend* is arriving in stores now!

- This collaboration* between Hello Kitty and Baggu is SO cute. If I didn't already have too many bags, I'd snatch some up!


- One of the dahlia varities that I have been the most excited about growing this year has started blooming! It's called Valley Tawny and it's blowing me away so far. The color is so pretty and it has a ton of buds!

- This post has made me think about color in my home.

- This meme is so acurate for me!


- Despite how hot it gets in the sewing room these days, Dusty is still very into sleeping in this storage basket on my cutting table!

Have a Great Weekend!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

New: Expanse Quilt Pattern

Happy Wednesday! Today I want to chat about my newest pattern, the Expanse Quilt Pattern.

I've been playing around with super-sized block quilts since 2011 when I made my Giant Vintage Star Quilt. I still love that quilt and I've continued to revisit the idea through other quilts and tutorials (like this one) and the Vast quilt that's in my book, Patchwork Essentials: The Half-Square Triangle.

You can find the new pattern for sale here: Expanse Quilt Pattern


Nearly every big-block quilt I've made has been a square throw size. This has resulted in many emails over the years asking for help to make larger quilts. This has led me to finally release the Expanse Quilt Pattern, which has five different size quilts made with super-sized half-square triangle blocks!

This big block quilt is the perfect project to show off those fabrics you can’t bear to cut up. It comes together super quick, making it great for last minute gifting! Choose between two style options: using all print fabrics or pairing prints with a background fabric.


As I mentioned there are FIVE quilt sizes to choose from, hooray! Here are the included sizes: Baby (34"x34"), Small Throw (51"x68"), Square Throw (68"x68"), Large (68"x85"), Extra Large (85"x102").

In addition to instructions for making half-square triangle blocks and making your quilt, you'll also find coloring pages at the back of the pattern to help you plan out your quilt.


I always thought it would be fun to make a baby quilt with this design. If you don't spend a ton of time picking fabrics (you only need a few), and choose a relatively simple quilting design, I think you could pull this baby quilt together in an afternoon. Sometimes you need a last minute baby quilt, and I think this is a great option. Here is the baby quilt I made! I picked all the fabrics around the Leah Duncan fabric that I used for the backing. I love how it turned out!


There are so many different color/fabric directions you could use for this quilt. I love making quilts that have no background fabric and this design works so well this way. Sometimes it's hard to choose a background fabric, or you just don't have enough on hand! This one was made with brushed cottons and double gauze fabrics by Nani Iro. I used wool batting and brushed cotton on the back, so it's incredibly cozy.

Read more about this quilt here: Nani Iro Brushed Cotton Expanse Quilt


Going in a totally different direction, one of the options in this pattern is to use a background fabric along with prints. This really has a ton of options in terms of design. You can decide how many different colored prints you want to use and arrange the blocks however you'd like. So many different possibilities. Here is a quilt I made using this gorgeous teal shot cotton as the background fabric. The whole quilt is centered around the orange unicorn print. The quilt ends up looking like one giant quilt block!

Read more about this quilt here: Super-sized Unicorn Half-square Triangle Quilt



You can find the new pattern for sale here: Expanse Quilt Pattern

Happy Quilting!

Friday Favorites 29

Happy Friday! It's time for another Friday Favorites post!

- I've been wanting to go blueberry picking ever since we moved to the east coast and I finally went this week! I went to Bishop's Orchards (one of our favorite places), in Guilford, CT and picked four quarts!

- This fun reel by Katie Gouwens shows her quilting a top made from my Giant Vintage Star Quilt Pattern! So pretty, and I love the quilting design she chose.

- Speaking of patterns, I have a new one in my shop, the Expanse Quilt Pattern. For all your big HST quilt needs! I'll share more about it in a dedicated post next week!


- I made these muffins from Pinch of Yum on Wednesday. We had zucchini to use up from our CSA and I already had everything else. They were really good, a keeper recipe for sure!

- I'm finally doing this quilt puzzle* that my Mom gave me, it's a good one!

- Love everything about this quilt by Tara Faughnan. It has such great movement.


- Kind of a silly project, but I finally cut out and added vinyl shapes to the temporary door* we added to be able to close off our kitchen. We can't go out the back door without a certain kitten being way too interested, so this was our solution. It's not super attractive, so I dressed it up with the help of my Cricut Maker* and some holographic vinyl!

- Current favorite animal video on the internet!

- Finished the second book in this series* that I mentioned a few weeks ago. Loved it even more than the first, I am so excited to keep reading. It's such a great feeling to get into a book series, I missed it.


- Dusty was VERY interested in watching the Cricut cut out all the shapes.

Have a Great Weekend!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Mid-Summer Garden Update

Happy Monday! I wanted to share an update on how our garden is doing so far this season. If you missed it, I shared my plans for this year's garden here: Garden Plans for the 2022 Season.


I'm so excited about how well the garden has been doing so far this year! We haven't had a lot of rain and it's been pretty hot the last few weeks, but I've stayed on top of the watering. The dahlia patch on the side of the garage is about to explode into bloom anytime now. I had my first dahlia bloom back in June, which is so early for me! I learn a little bit more every year I grow these plants. This past weekend I put in another level of corralling to hold the plants up. Here are a few dahlia bouquets that I've already picked so far this season:


The first bouquet I picked! Loving these colors.


This dahlias are all seedlings! I grew them from seeds that I saved at the end of last season. I'm so proud of them. Michael is going to help me name the ones that I decide to keep.


I picked this bouquet over the weekend. Finally starting to get a few other varieties to bloom!!


My hanging baskets have filled in so well. Impatiens aren't necessarily my favorite, but they do so well in the shade on either side of our front door!


On a whim I direct sowed some calendula seeds in a pot pretty late in the Spring without much expectation. They've done so well and have given me a lot of joy! I have some in ground too, but the pot of them has done so much better! They're bringing lots of bees to the vegetable garden which is great. They're also just so cheerful to look at.


Speaking of a cheerful flower, I'm growing giant orange marigolds for the first time this year. I loved growing the chrysanthemum style 'Mission Giant' marigolds last year, and I'm growing those again too. The orange ones look like a giant tall version of a standard marigold. The bees seem to like them too!


The self-seeded rudbeckia have been showstoppers this season! There is such a variety of shapes and colors, some of them have so many petals! I've refrained from deadheading any of them in the hopes that they will self-seed again.


The vegetable garden is doing great! I picked the first cherry tomato on July 1st, which felt so early! A few weeks ago I shared a tutorial for the wooden trellises I made for them, you ca find it here: Tutorial: DIY Budget Wooden Tomato Trellis.


We've been picking tomatoes every other day at this point. We're really loving the sungold tomatoes, this was our first year growing them. We also are liking the sunsugar tomatoes too, they're somehow even sweeter!


Very excited to try the first sunrise bumblebee tomatoes this week! They're so pretty, with their stripes. I hope they taste as good as they look!

That's it for now! I've been sharing little snippets of the garden nearly every day on my personal instagram @jenihanna, if you're interested in following along for more regular updates!

Happy Gardening!