Skip to main content

Bespoken Bag

The summer issue of GreenCraft magazine had an interesting project for a bespoke quilted bag made from scrap fabrics in a kantha style of piecing, which I've been sorta/kinda doing with slow stitch, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I chose my scrap fabrics from one of the Goodwill online auction lots.

I sewed them together using various stitches (my own and from the project instructions). It worked fine, although it felt a bit flimsy without any batting. Also, the raw edges of the fabric patches frayed a lot while I was working on the stitching, which doesn't bode well for durability (or what will happen when I have to wash it. Probably not a good idea to put this in the washing machine.) Still, it was good to step outside my habits and try something different in bag-making.

Front of the finished bag.

Back of the bag. I pieced the straps from scraps leftover from cutting the outside and the lining, too.

This is a good project to use up fabric scraps that are too small or weirdly shaped for anything else, although next time I'll probably fold over the edges to avoid that fraying issue.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to
Post a Comment
Read more

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more