The Bag Lady

It seems like I've been making lots of bags lately.  I've been told that you can never have too many bags, so maybe it's OK.  This bag is for my partner in the Sewing Room Swap, and is made from the Tinker Tote pattern from Craftsy.  I decided not to do the Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method on this one, but used a Duck cloth interfacing instead.  It didn't have the substance I was looking for, so I took it apart and added a layer of headliner foam and put it back together.  Now I have a bag that will stand by itself.  And it's nice and soft - maybe you could use it for a pillow too!?  It was a bit plain, once it was done, so I added a big fabric flower to the tab.  That jazzed it up a bit, I think.  Classy, with just a touch of pizzaz.

To go along with the linen bag, I made my partner an iron cozy.  The pattern is available from Oh Fransson!  What a great idea!  I will have to make myself one so I can take my iron to guild meetings.  I also managed to get the pattern on sale, which always makes me smile...

And I'm playing in the Secret Tote Bag Swap again.  My partner want's a large bag...  What do you think?  She wants pockets, which I didn't put in this one, but maybe a bag insert with lots of pockets?  And I've been meaning to add a big button on the tab...  Maybe in pink?  Or yellow?  We'll call this semi-finished.

I also taught my first class at Derrels of Pensacola last week.  This is my sample bag.  The pattern is by Very Purple Person and I shamelessly stole borrowed the idea from a swap item I received from Joanne (JoJo33) in the Modern She Made swap.  I got so many complements on it, they asked me to teach a class. Like Joanne's gift, I did the two sides in different colors on my sample...

But not on the one I actually made in the class...  I only took my "red bin" with me (rather than lug several to the store, you know) - a fact which made Bob, the owner, laugh.  (But I have to admit that it's very convenient to have my scraps sorted by color now.)  And I'm teaching another class on September 10th if you wanna come...

The sample is all red and pink, with a bit of HR goodness in the fussy cut center.

One of my students actually finished the quilting on the outside of her bag as well.  It's so fun to see what other people come up with.

It's so pretty in these batiks.  Much more subdued, but gorgeous. Sadly, my other student left a bit early, and I didn't think to get a picture...
 

And I'm teaching a 2-day class on Weekender Bags at Derrels on September 12 & 19.   If you live near Pensacola and want to make the bag, head to Derrels website and sign up.

I made some other bags from the VPP pattern.  This one is in a whole cloth quilted style with Japanese character/texty lining.  The fabric is Rooftop Garden by Moda.  I love the big flower motifs and the contrast of colors in this piece.

This one is a flower print (for the life of me I can't remember what it is and apparently I didn't save the selvage?!) is one of the Michael Miller fairy prints and the other side is AMH Mixed Signals in Summer.

And this one is the fabric remaining from Abby's dress and AMH Mixed Signals in Summer.  I really love that pennant fabric.

These bags are available in my Etsy shoppe including a Custom Bag, where you choose the colors and/or fabrics.  Wouldn't they make a perfect gift?