Tag Archives: bags

2016 Pouch Swap – Stash & Dash

My second swap for this year was the #2016pouchswap organised by Kristi @sugarndspice77

My partner mentioned ByAnnie’s Stash & Dash bag as pattern that they liked, I’d come across it a few times so decided to go for it.  I’ve enjoyed working with Soft & Stable when making the Social Tote so I was looking forward to using it in this project to.

2016 Zipper Pouch Swap - Stash & Dash Bag 2016 Zipper Pouch Swap - Stash & Dash Bag

Outside (left) with the wrap around strap and clear vinyl slip pocket. Inside (right) has 3 zippered mesh pockets, all stashed with goodies for my swap partner.

I picked out 4 Fat Quarters from a Tula Pink bundle, my partner’s favourite fabric, one each for the inside and outside main fabrics. I then chose to use the third for the zipper binding and wrap-around strap, and the fourth for the outside pocket & binding (these are often the same fabric but I couldn’t squeeze all the pieces out of one fat quarter).

Overall I enjoyed making this bag. It wasn’t too hard, quite a number of steps but taking it one at a time you get through it all. I’m pretty comfortable with zippers and binding but hadn’t sewn with mesh or vinyl before and my last attempts at machine binding were less than great. I made things a little more difficult for myself by having darks and lights and wanting to match my thread on both sides but I think it was worth it.

2016 Zipper Pouch Swap - Stash & Dash Bag
It’s hard to capture in photos but I found glitter flecked vinyl in Bunnings of all places (purchased off a roll, designated for table coverings I’d guess).

A sew-a-long on the ByAnnie blog was a big help if anything in the pattern wasn’t entirely clear. As with any new pattern I picked up a few handy hints as well, I was a bit skeptical about not ironing the binding in half, instead matching the raw edges to sew down but then when you fold it over you can smooth it out which I think really helped with sewing it down neatly – I’m stoked with how neat my machine binding turned out.

2016 Zipper Pouch Swap - Stash & Dash Bag

I’d be keen to make another one of these, they’d make a great travel sewing kit, make up or toiletries bag. I’d consider using vinyl for some of the inner pockets next time (handier for stashing little, skinny or sharp things). The slide clip came in a pack of two so I’m sure there will be at least one more.

Thankfully my partner loved the pouch! And here’s the cute boxy pouch I received in the swap, I’m even more keen to make a boxy pouch now.

Oh well, there hadn’t been a whole lot of quilt sewing happening these first few months of the year, but I’ve kept up with and really enjoyed my swaps. One more Q1 completed swap to share soon, and I’m currently in another due in July. Before that though there will finally  be more quilt progress to show real soon!

Getting back in the groove with a Social Tote

Earlier this year in June I was lucky to get a spot in a class to make the Social Tote, lead by Lorena Uriate and hosted at Material Obsession. I already owned the pattern by Carolyn Friedlander & Anna Graham (Noodlehead) but having read over it I wasn’t up to tackling it by myself. There are lots of additional photos on Carolyn Friedlander’s site to help explain the process if you’re not so lucky to have someone to show you through it.

Social Tote - a portable sewing caddy

The class was scheduled for a couple weeks after the Modern Quilt Show Australia held in May. I knew I’d be burnt out after the show and could use a kickstart to get back in to sewing & quilting so it was perfect timing.

Social Tote - a portable sewing caddy
Empty Social Tote

The inside configuration of the social tote, with and without all the fun stuff.

The social tote isn’t huge but is just the right size for carrying around your needles, threads, scissors and other small bits and pieces for a smaller project like EPP, or even just the little parts of a larger project. It sits on the arm of my lounge and acts as a thread catcher while I work and lets me easily move around. There are 2 smaller compartments and one larger compartment, perfect for a small kitten to climb into and then play with the built-in toys (clover clips & handles).

Social Tote - The perfect kitty basket with built in toys
Kitten Approved!

The pattern includes instructions for a pin cushion that fits perfectly into one of the smaller compartments. I like that it also helps hold the shape of the tote. One of the tips Lorena shared was that small scraps of batting are great for filling the pincushion and helping it hold its shape, I used a combination of batting scraps and polyfill for mine.

Social Tote Pincusion
Social Tote Pincusion

Both sides of the pin cushion – my favourite print (the paint chips) and a perfectly sized wedge circle!

There are two little side pockets between the handles which are great for adding small feature fabrics. For my Social Tote I used various fabrics from the Paint line by Carrie Bloomston. The outside is one of my most favourite prints, I love the “Not Pink” colour combined with newsprint. The inner bottom uses the paint brushes print and I picked a few complementary colours & prints for other parts. I saved the paint chips for my pockets and one side of the pin cushion and the multi-colour woven print was a perfect binding to tie it all together.

Social Tote using Paint Fabrics by Carrie Bloomston of SUCH Designs

If I were to make another I would probably try to make it a little deeper and I do wonder if it would be possible to add some kind of closure or lid for it so that I could put it in with other supplies in a bag for sewing events outside home. I’m really happy I went through the process of making this tote and am especially grateful for Lorena’s expert guidance, it was a great day out and I’ll be keeping an eye out for more workshops up at Material Obsession in future.

Riley Blake MQG Challenge – Quilt-As-You-Go Bag

It was a perfect match, a Modern Quilt Guild Basics Challenge sponsored by Riley Blake Designs to make anything quilted, with six fat-eighths to start us off, and a fabulous Craftsy class to make Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags that I could not wait to try. I’m so excited to share this bag so look out, lots of pretty pictures coming up!

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I’d been hoping for a chance to take the Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags Craftsy class with with Tara Rebman when it was announced that Riley Blake Designs would be sponsoring the 3rd annual MQG members fabric challenge, we heard about it at a Wollongong MQG sew day and I knew exactly what I was going to make. Light bulb moment!

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

We received our fabrics towards the end of last year as 5.5″ x WOF strips from the range of Riley Blake basics. The fabrics I received were:

  • solid dark grey
  • light grey and white 1″ stripes
  • navy and white medium gingham
  • aqua tone on tone medium chevron
  • white on yellow small dots
  • orange pop

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I’ve supplemented these with some other Riley Blake fabrics from my stash and a few solids including:

  • yellow tone on tone small dot
  • orange tone on tone small dot
  • white on aqua dot
  • orange solid
  • yellow solid
  • sea green solid
  • navy solid for the bias binding
  • navy blue solid cotton duck cloth for the bag base

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I started off by cutting a few small and medium strips and squares of varying sizes from each fabric and began the quilt as you go process which uses a log cabin approach. Each round adds a new piece of fabric to cover the join of the previous two pieces and gets quilted down (as you go), towards the edges using pre-patched slabs rather than single fabric pieces. Stay tuned for an upcoming post reviewing the class and sharing some more details of the bag making.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I used Aurifil 50wt threads for this project, a light grey/silver (2600) for piecing & quilting the main panels and navy (2745) for quilting on the base panel and attaching the bias binding. My quilting is roughly 1/4″ apart, though I did vary on purpose to give some subtle difference in textures and in some cases to suit the fabric.  My favourite part of the quilting is this navy gingham piece below.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

The bag is a pretty good size as you can see above with it on my shoulder. In opens up wide and has a handy flap with magnetic snap to keep it closed. I included both pocket options, a hidden zipper pocket on one side and a divided pocket on the other.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I really love these challenges, this one in particular took me out of my comfort zone with colour but seeing all the fabrics combined I quite like the overall effect of the outside of the bag.  I wish I didn’t choose an orange solid for the lining, next to the navy binding all I see is football team colours. This is a perfect case where a subtle tone on tone chevron or dots would have been a better choice for such a large area. I already have some fat quarter packs of the Riley Blake small dots and tone on tone dots and I’m sure more of their basics will make their way into my stash, I just haven’t been able to source it locally yet so couldn’t get it in time to finish my bag.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

A huge thanks to Riley Blake Designs for sponsoring this challenge and providing the fabric for us to play with. Thank you also to the Modern Quilt Guild for organising these challenges for us and to our awesome leader Rachael of the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild who does all the organising so we can participate.

Zippers for Bags Class with Nicole Mallalieu

Nicole Mallalieu & I

Earlier this week I was lucky enough to take part in a day class with the Queen of Bag Making (amongst many other things), Nicole Mallelieu from You Sew Girl!

First up, a huge thank you must go out to the team at Peg’s Pieces in Kirrawee for organising Nicole’s visit, especially our host Bernadette who was also our fabulous “gofer”, tea lady and colour matching assistant all day for us.

Zips really don’t have to be that scary, it can seem that way if you’ve never been shown how to sew one in but as Nicole said, “it’s only fabric and haberdashery”. I was shown during a lesson after buying my sewing machine, and there are plenty of great tutorials out there for little zipper pouches that are great practice. Having had that bit of practice behind me I wanted to see how to go about using them in a bag, I love bags with lots of pockets for organising things.

The Zippers for Bags class was perfect as it focused on the different options for using zippers to customise and add pockets to a bag. We got all the way through making two of the options for our bags, with great notes for a few other options as well. The rest of the bag is still to come but when it’s done there will be pockets for everything! Almost.

TopstitchingZipper bag gusset

It was an incredible day, and absolutely exhausting jamming all those great tips and ideas into my head before driving home in the wind and rain but I loved every minute and would jump at the chance to take more classes with Nicole. Sounds like great excuse for a trip to Melbourne.

In preparation for the class there were a few things I needed to get my hands on. Things I’d never used before but are surely going to become two of my favourite new toys:

Vliesofix T 6 – this is a roll of thin (6mm) fusbile tape with paper on one side so you can iron to one piece of fabric, rough side down, then rip off the paper and iron to the other side. It’s really handy instead of trying to use pins for holding together little fiddly edges and small pieces before stitching, I’d run out of fingers trying to count how many times “Vliesofix it!” was called out during the day. I found mine in Spotlight (last box!) but it was also available at Peg’s Pieces, and hopefully somewhere near you.

Vilene S320 – This is an amazing fusible non-woven interfacing, when ironed on to the back of fabric it adds support and helps improve accuracy for beautiful crisp edges and corners. It was a little tricky to find and nearly all references to it online were from the You Sew Girl site and blog. So where can you buy S320? I got mine before the class from Voodoo Rabbit who stock a great range of You Sew Girl products in their online store. Peg’s Pieces also had it available along with other You Sew Girl items and recommendations, both stores are super friendly and helpful if you’re after anything to help you make beautiful bags.

If you’ve ever wanted to try making your own bag or purse keep an eye out and if Nicole Mallalieu is ever doing a class near you, jump on it! If you can’t make it to a class, try one of her patterns or kits, they come with really detailed instructions that are almost as good as having her there to help you out.

Interfacing
Zipper Gusset