OK, so this should be on my secret projects blog, but I don't think the recipient will know it is for her. I am not even sure she reads my blog any more. A-n-y-w-a-y-s...I am uncharacteristically thinking ahead for some gifts for Christmas, birthdays, Christmas, babies being born soon, Christmas, etc. I really wanted to sew tonight. It's been a while since I've spent quality time with my Janome.
I got the bright idea to make this certain person a tote bag. I was looking at patterns the other day. I liked different things about different patterns, so I combined all of them into this bag. It does not look that impressive in the pictures, but you know how sometimes pics just don't do an item justice? My husband and dear-soon-to-be-17-year-old daughter both really liked it.
For the past few months I've been collecting selvages. I had seen some cute ideas out there and thought I'd wish I had some if I ever saw a pattern I just had to make. Being a scrappy quilter just overflows into other scrappiness. I decided to make a band of selvages to fit at the top of my tote. Here is a section close up...
I added a few non-Thimbleberries just to see who was paying attention!
For the handles, I took a 4" side piece of fabric x 25" long and ironed it in half lengthwise, wrong sides together. I then ironed in a piece of (are you ready for this) IRON-ON interfacing 1" x 25" along the fold on the inside (I'm a little loopy tonight...don't know why). Then I folded both sides in and ironed them. I ended up with a 4-layer piece with no exposed seams with a piece of interfacing in there somewhere. I topstitched it with 5 rows of stitching. Cute. Durable. Not extremely stiff. Matches the bag.
One other "Joan" feature...I cut a strip from a leg from a pair of jeans from which I made another gift (pics to come) that was laying on my cutting table (are you following this?). I used that to make the bottom of the tote bag so it would be more durable. Genius, right?? Hee hee...
The whole shebang (except for the selvages) was meander quilted with a variegated heavy thread in primary colors. It matches the spool fabric very well.
Here is a picture of the whole thing...
An hour and a half well spent. Hope she likes it!!
~Joan
3 comments:
That's a great bag! Just an hour and a half? It would have taken me much longer. Anyways, I think I should start saving some selvages too :)
Very cute! Do you mean this is not for you daughter? You keep giving her my stuff!
Oh ...yummy! I have just started collecting.
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