A quick note: I sew in a basement room without a whole lot of childcare time, and it’s February in the Pacific Northwest, so be forewarned that these photos aren’t exactly professionally lit or painstakingly staged. It’s a simple tutorial though, so hopefully you can follow along easily – I made these two tote bags in about an hour and a half, counting all the quilt block piecing! If you use stash blocks or just cut solid pieces of fabric, you can fly through these. My goal is to make 5 for the littlest warriors by the March 12 deadline – all the details are here.

You’ll need:

-Two quilt blocks (or solid pieces of fabric) in the 11”-12” square range for the outer sides of the bag. I used 12” blocks and fabric squares.
-If using quilt blocks: muslin, the same size as your blocks, or slightly bigger, for reinforcing them
-Lining fabric of your choice, the same size as your outer blocks or fabric
-1.5 yards of webbing for handles
-Thread, rotary cutter, quilt ruler + mat, scissors, iron, sewing machine

1. Cut two pieces of fabric (I used an Alexander Henry zoo print for my blue bag) or piece two quilt blocks of your choice, approximately 12” square. (You can also make them smaller or bigger if you like – 12” makes a nice toddler/preschooler-to-elementary-school size).

This is a great project for stash quilt blocks, or if you need to piece up two quick ones, log cabin is an easy one! I made a random log cabin block in the six yellow fabrics I originally used in my Bright Furrows quilt from Modern Log Cabin Quilting. To make two 12” blocks like these, cut 6 selvage-to-selvage (44”) strips that are 1.75” wide, in the quilting cottons of your choice. Here’s a short video of how I piece log cabin blocks…

For an approximately 12” block, you’ll start with a 1.75” center square in one of the fabrics and add 4 tiers of logs using different fabrics in any order, piecing clockwise and pressing when each tier is completed. Press front and back and square up your blocks.

2. If you’re using quilt blocks, quilt them with a muslin backing (or use the technique of your choice) to add stability. I quilted a square outline pattern about 1/8” outside the center square and then each tier (you can see this more easily in the photo that precedes step #4). Press again and trim excess so your blocks are square. (This would also be a great project for foundation piecing/quilting as you go!)

3. Now, cut two pieces of lining fabric the same size as your blocks or outer fabrics. I used my guildmate Violet Craft’s Peacock Lane for my lining.

4. Pin the two outer pieces together around three sides, right sides facing and leaving the top open, and then repeat the same way with the lining fabrics. Stitch the three sides with a 1/2″ inch seam allowance, back-stitching at the beginning and end to hold the seam. You’ll sew the outer and lining sections together the same way.

5. Make box corners by pressing the corners into flat triangles with the seams pressed open, pinning them, and stitching 1” in from the corner. You’ll do this the same way for the outer and lining bag sections.

6. Trim the extra fabric at each corner, as shown.

This is what your finished box corner will look like from the outside!

7. Now turn the outer bag right side out and tuck the lining in, making sure they fit snugly together. Turn the raw edges of both the bag and lining under and press them evenly (you can turn under 1/4″ to 1/2″, depending on how bulky your quilted outer section is – just keep your bag and lining consistent). Pin the bag and lining together all around the perimeter of the opening.

8. Cut two 18” lengths of webbing for handles and pin each of them in place. I placed mine 2” (patchwork) and 2.5” (wholecloth) in from the side seam – I followed the outer edge of the second tier of my log cabin blocks as a guideline for my patchwork tote, and eyed it with my wholecloth one. Just make sure they’re even with one another and match the handle on the other side, and that the handles aren’t twisted!

9. Edge-stitch around the perimeter of the bag, catching both layers evenly, and then reinforce the four handles with double-stitching.

You’re done!

To make a larger/adult size, try starting with 15” or 16” quilt blocks or fabric squares (and same-size lining) instead of 11”/12”, and reinforcing the blocks with a home dec weight fabric instead of muslin. You can cut your handles to 24” each (instead of 18”), too.

Some other tutorials I like:

-The Purl Bee’s Twenty-Minute Tote (my original inspiration – an adult-sized bag without lining or box corners)

-My guildmate Monica’s adorable Pick-A-Pocket Purse (with clever outer pockets!)

-The Pink Penguin’s Lunch Bag tutorial

-And here are four other tote bags I’ve made for my own kids and their friends in this same style!

So, the March 12 deadline is two weeks from tomorrow… I would love to cheer you on if you are sewing for the littlest warriors too! Please comment or keep me posted on what you’re making, and I will be so excited to share photos of all the finished bags and hats I see. Thank you!!

Since then I’ve sewn a frog version with ribbon handles for Pearl’s buddy Ellie, and a rocket-ship applique on outer-space-worthy star fabric for her very best friend Rowan.

But now I am starting up a new round of my tote-sewing for Craft Hope’s project 16: the littlest warriors. Jade of Craft Hope has teamed up with Melanie – a friend whose son Pierce has battled leukemia for three years – to collect totes and soft hats and beanies for children fighting cancer.

You can make hats or totes from any pattern for children of all ages, babies through teenagers, and send them to Melanie (all info here). She’ll distribute them to the patients who need hope the most… a colorful, happy surprise present to make the days at the hospital a little shorter.

As Jade shared, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer every weekday, and 7 children die every single weekday, too. But there is hope. Pierce, who’s now four and a half, had his last chemo treatment on February 11, a day he’d been counting down to. As Jade wrote, he is winning! My mom is a cancer survivor and the kindness of friends and strangers alike has been a huge gift to her, one I am humbled to give back.

So this isn’t a Valentine’s Day post really, except that it’s about love. I have some Valentine’s posts and free projects to share here, here, here, and here. But the one I hope you’ll also take a look at is here – my simple kid-sized version of the Purl Bee’s 20-minute tote. It’s easy and you can stitch up two of them from contrasting third-yard cuts of fabric and two yards of twill or ribbon, if you’re so inclined. The deadline is March 12 and all details are over here. My goal is to sew and send five bags with little surprises inside, hopefully more if I have the sewing time. If you want to team up on shipping bags or hats from Portland, let me know!

Wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s Day, and of course a happy 152nd 153rd birthday to Oregon! Here are the valentines Pearl made for all the kids at her preschool, using some fun things from Collage…

…and writing her name on the back of each one! This was a fun and easy little Everett’s-nap project this weekend. She did everything herself except cut the paper up.

Speaking of Collage, they are having their grand opening party for the Sellwood store on Saturday, February 18! And our next PMQG meeting is this Thursday, February 16 at PNCA. We have some fun stuff planned this month, and I hope to see you there!

Like many other, bigger websites, I am turning my blog dark today to protest censorship.

If you enjoy sharing photos, text, and content freely online, I encourage you to voice your opposition to SOPA, which appears to have dangerous, far-reaching consequences for all of us. You can sign a petition here, contact your (US) officials here, or get lots more info here.

Thank you!

Lots of sewing! I think my favorite things I made are my denim wrap skirt, Everett’s birthday banner, and the plaid Pendleton blanket for my mother-in-law. I also love my Denyse Schmidt improvisational blocks, and I hope that I’ll actually get to piece them into a bed quilt in 2012. If you’re looking for truly spectacular finished quilt projects, check out people’s mosaics and posts on the Modern Quilt Guild FB page. (All of my quilting time went to Quilts for Quake Survivors, so my contributions were all just parts of a beautiful whole, so no finished quilts to show this year – I’m ok with it!)

Speaking of Quilts for Quake Survivors, I wanted to post an update over here, too. We are winding the project down this week after donating 30 quilts to survivors of the earthquake in Japan (March and April) and raising $2825 and counting for Mercy Corps’ relief work (May-now). A HUGE thank-you to everyone who has donated fabric, pieced blocks, joined or sashed quilt tops, sewed backs, basted, quilted, tied or bound quilts with us. We are so grateful for your beautiful work!

These quilts are still available for a $150 donation to Mercy Corps – including the brand-new #6 in the collage, Michelle Freedman’s original Cat’s Game quilt!:

1. Batique 1 – 020, 2. Eclectic Asian – 017, 3. Block of the Month – 014, 4. Friendly haze – 004, 5. asian delight – 006, 6. Michelle Freedman’s Cat’s Game quilt – 022

If you are interested, please go to our page on the Mercy Corps website and donate $150 (shipping is on us). You can donate to ANY cause you’d like the money to go to, not just Japan. Just state your preferred cause in the subject line. Mercy Corps will distribute the funds according to your specifications on their back end. Then you can send an email to quiltsforquakesurvivors@gmail.com with the donation confirmation number and the number of the quilt and your shipping address. We will send you a confirmation email and ship the quilt within 48 hours via USPS. Also – if you’ve already donated $150 or more for end of year giving, you can send us the donor number and we’ll gladly send you a quilt as a thank-you.

After this week, we’ll donate any remaining quilts to Bradley-Angle House, a shelter here in Portland, for the women and children there. Thank you to everyone who has supported QfQ!!

I have a few more little things to share soon… like my favorite new hot chocolate recipe, and the finished 25-minute book and toy totes for Pearl and Everett (which were a huge hit on Christmas morning!). I’ll see you when I have a chance to upload some more photos!

I trimmed the remnant evenly on all sides (so it measured about 42″ x 52″) and edged it with the 1″ navy blue wool binding Pearl specially picked out for her Grammy ($1 a yard at the WMS). I used my Sesquicentennial blanket as a binding-style template and bound it with simple folded corners, double-stitching it – first around the inner perimeter to catch all layers, and then doing a second victory lap close to the outer edge. The WMS gives you a “Hand-Tailored with Pendleton Woolens” tag with a fabric purchase, so I got to sew that in as a finale and it’s beautiful. I will definitely be making more of these – they are awesome. Hello, Christmas!

There is a little more excitement around here to report, too! I was really appreciative that Beth from NW Kids Magazine contacted me a few weeks ago for a craftivism feature she was planning, and included an interview with me in the October/Halloween issue (which I picked up at the Children’s Museum last week – yay). Thank you so much, Beth!

She asked me lots of questions about my thoughts on craftivism, the community Quilts for Quake Survivors fundraiser I’ve been working on with Daniela, and my day-to-day and favorite things to do in Portland with two little kids. She also included the POW! ZAP! Magnets from World of Geekcraft as a free project extra in the issue, so please jump on that – a kid at the safety scissors level of crafting should be able to have a lot of fun with that one, with help from a mom, dad, or older sibling.

Speaking of Quilts for Quake Survivors, I’m so happy to say that QfQ is going strong and we are unveiling new quilts every M-W-F for the next month, thanks to Daniela’s fabulous photography and posting. Each quilt is $150 (“bought” via a direct donation to Mercy Corps) and you can choose any quilt you love, email us with your receipt, and we will ship or deliver it to you (US addresses only, international shipping will be extra, it’s out of pocket for us so I hope everyone understands…).

The other thing that is super awesome is that thanks to Mercy Corps, they’ve modified our fundraiser page so that you can designate your donation to go to any of their relief efforts you’re most drawn to (which Daniela had already said on our blog posts, but now it’s official). So if you’d rather make a donation to their crucial, current efforts in Somalia, Pakistan, or elsewhere, that’s great. Our hearts are always with Japan, but we know that Mercy Corps’ efforts have been global and we are proud to support them worldwide. There are 8 quilts still available (and counting!) and 3 have been sold in the last couple weeks. Just a peek…

Thank you to everyone who has donated fabric, pieced, sashed, quilted, tied, or bound our community quilts for sale. We love you!

First, Alissa’s amazing fabric fundraiser for Action Kivu has just a couple days left to go (it closes Sunday the 14th). They are hoping to raise $15,000 and are at the halfway point now. Awesome!

Action Kivu is a nonprofit that helps women who are victims of the conflict in Eastern Congo by teaching them to sew. The conflict in Congo has taken the lives of over 5.4 million people since 1998. Rape is used as a weapon of war, with estimates putting the number of rapes in the hundreds of thousands. This is truly difficult stuff to think about but together we can really make a difference for some specific women who need our help.

By donating specific amounts, from $10-100, you automatically enter to win some amazing prizes at each level, like a set of 43 fat eighths of Flea Market Fancy, donated by Jacquie and Ashley ($75), and a set of Sugar Creek fabrics (not even in stores yet!) from Denyse Schmidt Quilts ($40).

As of this morning I am so happy to announce that if you donate $20, you can win a set of books – a signed copy of Modern Log Cabin Quilting paired with Alissa’s Block Party!! The fundraiser ends Sunday (8/14) so please jump in when you can. This is such an important cause and I am thankful to be supporting it (I have my fingers crossed for the Flea Market Fancy category). Lots more info on Action Kivu here, and Alissa’s post and prize descriptions here.

Speaking of good causes, Daniela and I are winding down the Quilts for Quake Survivors project for Mercy Corps’ work in Japan with our party on Sunday! We’d love to see past and present supporters (you are so welcome to come sew with us for a bit from 4-6, then hang out and have food, drinks and music from 6-8). Thank you to everyone who has been part of this project.

I’ll be grocery shopping with Alexandra this afternoon – she has generously offered to make some lovely food especially for the QfQ party, so we’re picking out some good things. I can’t wait!

Last, there’s another crafty party next weekend! I’m teaching my Woolen Cross Pillow class at the Woolen Mill Store on Saturday, August 20, from 12-2. It’s $45 and you get all the materials to make one of these cross pillows, plus lots of extra wool to bring home for your second one!

After the class, the Woolen Mill Store is hosting a Modern Log Cabin Quilting reception and book signing from 2-4 (free!). Each person will get a special Pendleton wool kit to make a log cabin block, and there will be refreshments and other surprises (like felt comics magnets kits!) for crafters too. I’ll have all the projects I’ve made with Pendleton wool there (including the Winter Woolens Quilt from MLCQ) to show, and some of my favorite book projects, too. I would love to see you there.

Woolen Cross Pillow class, 12-2
MLCQ reception, 2-4
The Woolen Mill Store, 8500 SE McLoughlin Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97222

So, prizes, parties and quilting… I hope one of these strikes your fancy too, and that I’ll see you at the parties!

Sisters was awesome. I wrote more about this at my MLCQ blog if you’d like to see, and there are some great PMQG exhibit photos + details here too. Special thanks to everyone who came to my book signing at the Stitchin’ Post, and to Heather for this shot of my Modern Crosses quilt in our display!

My Log Cabin Quilting class at PNCA was wonderful thanks to my amazing students. Here’s the design wall at the end of class with a couple of blocks from each person (L to R – Michelle, Robin, Melanie, Amy, Lizzy, + Rachel). I’ll write more on that over at MLCQ soon too.

Made jam with Daniela to celebrate our Quilts for Quake Survivors project winding down – one batch of strawberry-marionberry and one batch of raspberry (in the snapshot). I really love to make freezer jam. It’s something I always wanted to do and last summer I loved finally doing it. One day, when I don’t have kids this little to wrangle, I want to learn how to do real canning – but for now, this easy, fun take on jam (and salsa, tomato sauce, and pesto) is exactly my speed.

Speaking of QfQ, we are hosting a thank-you party for everyone who helped – a couple final hours of sewing on the last quilts and then a barbecue with drinks, food and music! We’d love to see you over there – it’s August 14 from 4-8pm, all the details above. Huge thanks to our gracious host, Amy of PMQG.

And the Fat Quarterly Block Pocket Apron-along just finished up this week! Thank you so much to John and everyone at FQ for hosting. You can get the free (corrected) pattern for the apron project, and visit the posts for week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4 at their blog – they are evergreen so you can jump in and sew whenever you have time (or the pressing need for a cute apron for cooking and cocktails).

LOVED our Denyse Schmidt improvisational patchwork + design class. I will definitely write more about that soon. For now I’d love to point you to Blair’s posts here and here (yay, got to meet Blair!) and share just one photo of about 2/3 of our class design wall. My blocks are the yellow, blue, gray and brown ones in the upper center. Several people in the class said that they thought they looked like me – which I think too. I loved doing two days’ worth of inspiring piecing towards what I hope is a bed quilt – no pressure to finish it by a deadline or explain how to make it to anyone else, and using colors I love, in a simple pattern I can break up with extra scrap piecing whenever I want to…

Now, I’m jumping into a solo game of house tetris – switching the kids’ bedrooms around so that Pearl has a big-girl room and Everett gets the nursery, and my tiny, adorable, and chronically overstuffed craft room is heading down two flights of stairs to the basement. I have put in about a day and a half of hard labor so far and I am completely loving it. I have a big, beautiful desk to sew on, my favorite fabrics are folded on a shelf, I’ve ruthlessly sorted out a decade’s worth of craft + beyond magazines, and packed away my beloved but under-used supplies for now. I haven’t had time to make jewelry or use my Gocco printer in the last long while, but the things for them have been right smack in the heart of my workspace. So I’m a little sad to box so many things up and store them (nearby), but it’s so liberating to be able to see what I have and use it. I just don’t have all the open-ended craft time I used to (and my work has changed so much in the last few years, as magazines and publishing shifts) so my workspace needs to reflect that. And to be honest, my room had been so messy since finishing up 23 quilts and patchwork projects on deadline + having a baby overloaded the already precarious balance that I didn’t take any before photos. I just don’t want to see it like that again, it had been stressing me out, and a fresh start is really inspiring me.

One other new thing is that I am switching my card catalog from holding my vast collection of jewelry findings to all the sewing essentials that ended up around the room – bias tape, zippers, rick-rack (an essential to me anyway!) and hand-sewing bits. I love it already. I always loved Tricia’s sewing catalog so I’m following in her footsteps!

One last craft-room switch thing that I’m super excited about is painting a section of the basement wall. Most of my space has wood walls, but there’s a stretch of it painted with a dull, flat tannish color (similar to some of what we put chalkboard paint over on Pearl’s side of things). I went through a lot of my little treasures I want to put up on the wall, and found this one from around 2003 – I used to sell my jewelry at Alicia‘s shop (her beautiful half of Ella + Posie) and did a craft fair there for the holidays with Torie. Alicia made each vendor a name decoration for the tables, and I still have mine. I took it to the hardware store with Everett this morning, played with paint chips for a little while, and settled on Tropicana Cabana (on the right). I thought about the lighter version (on the left) – but this is a basement, in Oregon, and I want some color! So I hope to have an after photo soon, as soon as I hit publish I will be taping the edges…

Happy summer and happy crafting! I am so excited to do some new things and sew some things that have been on my list for a long time. Hope to see you soon.

Now I’m helping organize one of the Portland Craft Parties (yes, there are THREE going on in Portland) this Friday, June 10, and I would love to tell you all about it. We are planning some really fun things and it would be great to see you there!

PORTLAND CRAFT PARTY #1!

The I Heart Art/Museum of Contemporary Craft event, a fundraiser for Mercy Corps‘ work in Japan, is really coming together and we are so excited about it! From 11-6, I’m hosting a Quilts for Quake Survivors bee at the Museum, thanks to Modern Domestic generously lending us six Bernina 330 machines for sewing and quilting. We have some beautiful quilts in progress that could use a little love if you have time to jump in with us! All community-made quilts are for sale through Modern Domestic, priced at $125 or $150, and the money raised from sales goes straight to Mercy Corps.

The Museum is also going to display a selection of the QfQ quilts in their beautiful Community Showcase upstairs in the Lab, where the daytime craft party will be taking place. These community-made fundraiser quilts will be on display in the Museum for the month thanks to their generosity! I’ll post a photo as soon as we finish the installation on Thursday…

So, during the day Friday (11-6) you can sew, quilt, bind, or try one of the free crafts offered by I Heart Art:

* 11:00 am–1:00 pm — Japanese-style Papercuts
* 1:30 pm–3:30 pm — Freestyle Embroidery
* 4:00 pm–6:00 pm — Mighty Ugly Project

The evening party will start off at 7pm (tickets here), and your entry ticket includes music, food, beer and wine, tickets to win prizes (including a Modern Domestic punchcard, handmade gifts, and signed copies of both my books, among many other lovely things), and tons more chances to craft – including needle-felting, origami, hand-weaving, and making your own crafty artist trading cards!

But… there are two other craft parties going on too!

PORTLAND CRAFT PARTY #2!

Speaking of our dear sponsor Modern Domestic, they are hosting a lovely sewing party at their shop to celebrate, from 10 am on. Details here:

In celebration of Bernina‘s new partnership with Etsy, we are offering unlimited open-sewing all day long with snacks and refreshements for $10 to all Etsy vendors and customers. In addition, you will get 20% off any one item on June 10th (this offer excludes machines and classes).

PORTLAND CRAFT PARTY #3!

And The Pendleton Woolen Mill Store is also planning something amazing, including decorate-your-own-sheep-cookies, at their store, from 2-5 pm:

Join us in a celebration of all things crafty (and woolly). Tour the store and the gallery, watch the strange miniature animatronic mill, test out some Pendleton craft supplies, use our enormous cutting tables for your project, and eat some tasty cookies. We hope to have some garments from the Pendleton archive on view, a treat for sure!

(By the way, if you haven’t been to the Woolen Mill Store yet, here’s a video tour.)

If there was ever an afternoon I wish I could be in three places at once, this Friday is the strongest contender yet. Please come by one (or if you’re super ambitious, all) of the parties if you can… we’d love to see you, make some great things, raise some money for Mercy Corps, and celebrate Etsy‘s birthday!

First, this Sunday (6/5), I’m doing a World of Geekcraft book signing and craft project event with my fantastic Oregon book contributors at Powell’s downtown! I was totally amazed that they listed me on the marquee – huge thank-you to Powell’s for the kind support for a local book. The event is at 4:00 in the Pearl Room upstairs, and everyone who comes by can make a POW! ZAP! Magnet, or take home all the stuff to make one later! I’m also bringing lots of book projects, so you can try out the LOST Tin-Can Telephones or hang out with a Tribble.

Here are some of the super-personalized comics magnets people made at my last few WOGC events… first, at Maker Faire,

and then last week at WebVisions!

Then, the following Friday (6/10), I Heart Art PDX is teaming up with the Museum of Contemporary Craft to host the Portland Craft Party, our local chapter of the worldwide Etsy extravaganzas!

It kicks off at 11 am with lots of free crafts to try, from paper cutting to freestyle embroidery, and I’m happy to say that I’ll be there hosting a Quilts for Quake Survivors bee. Please come make some cool things at all the different DIY stations, and jump in if you’d like to help us sew, quilt or bind one of our Mercy Corps fundraiser quilts in progress! We would love that.

The crafting and quilting bee continues all afternoon, and then at 7pm the daytime event transforms into an evening party/Mercy Corps Japan Relief fundraiser!

From the post:
At 7:00 pm, the doors will open back up to the Museum and the real party will start! We’re taking over the entire space with complete with food, beer and wine, a DJ, and even more crafting stations. Your door donation will get you an entry into the drawing for a whole slew of crafty prizes (books, gift certificates, handmade goods and more!), some food and beverage tickets, and a lot of crafty fun!

Throughout the evening you can rotate through hand-felting, origami, hand-weaving, and make your own crafty artist trading cards. The quilts made for the project will be on display, and Modern Domestic will have them available for sale and sell raffle tickets.

Yay!

The newest QfQ fundraiser quilt – Sea Glass by Petra

If you go:

World of Geekcraft book signing and craft event
Powell’s, 1005 W. Burnside St in Portland
Sunday, June 5 at 4:00 pm

Portland Craft Party!
Museum of Contemporary Craft, 724 NW Davis St. in Portland
Friday, June 10 starting at 11:00 am

We drove to Yachats on Saturday morning and stayed 50 feet from the beach, with steps right down to the sand. The entire Oregon coastline is public, so you can wander as far as you want, rocks and cliffs permitting. It doesn’t get much better than this, when the sun is setting and it’s still so light and lovely out.

We went to Cape Perpetua to see the tidepools and hike around the cliffs. Super beautiful. If you have a chance to hang out here, I can’t recommend it enough… and it’s just $5 for a day pass.

Drove on to North Bend…

and then on to Coos Bay and deep into the woods to stay at the base of Golden and Silver Falls State Park for a couple of blissful days.

I made my magnet kits for Maker Faire and Powell’s

and collaborated with Pearl to spell out all our names with the scraps

and even got to work on my Oregon Trail cross-stitch.

Then we headed south again

to visit The Prehistoric Gardens in Port Orford.

Amazing!

After that adventure, we kept heading south

and stopped for a picnic just before Brookings.

Then it was on to Trees of Mystery, Eureka, the Bobbin’s Nest, San Francisco, and Maker Faire!

We headed back home just in time to visit our beautiful state capitol in Salem and deliver a petition Monday morning in support of SB 695, the BPA-Free Baby Bill, with a group of Oregon families. It was an amazing experience – we delivered copies of the petition to seven legislators, and met with four of them. Here we are (on the left!) with Representative Ben Cannon, a sponsor of the bill.

I’ve posted about working for a BPA ban before (in several of my 241 posts on Oregon!), when a similar bill lost narrowly in our Senate last year. This year, it passed the Senate handily, with bipartisan support (20-9, actually!) and its chances to become the law our state deserves looked so hopeful. However, through ugly back-room tactics, it has been permanently stuck in its committee instead of getting a fair chance for a full floor vote in the House, and will expire without drastic measures. Its only chance is if many House reps band together to bring it forward – a long shot, but one worth fighting for. I love our state – all of it – so much, and all of our children deserve the same access to safe products, not just the ones whose parents wear themselves out doing tedious research or live close to a big grocery store that carries BPA-free products by choice.

I know this is not everyone’s issue, but it is mine, and as a mother who wants to feel confident spending my money on safe baby products right here in my home state, I’m asking for your help. If you live here in Oregon and can take a minute to call or email your House rep today and ask him or her to help save the BPA-Free Baby Bill, I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it. You can read more about the bill here, find your rep’s info here, and quickly take action here. This is a big first step towards banning toxins from many other household products and it all starts with you.