Jan 01 09

Fun New Year’s Quilting Project!

I have had the most wonderful week here in NC working in my sewing room. I whipped up a quickie sewing tool tote or “bagget” yesterday that’s a good way to use up fabric scraps and batting scraps and you end up with something cute and useful:

That turquoise/green/gold fabric was dyed by my friend Nancy Bruce and I just love, Love, LOVE it!! (Thanks again, Nance!) These can be made very quickly and the size can be altered quite easily. Here’s how I made this one. Cut 2 pieces of your border fabric-I cut mine at 4 inches x 9 inches, cut 2 pieces of your “main” fabric (I cut mine at 7 x 9 in), and cut 2 pieces of your lining fabric (I cut mine at 11 in x 11 in). Stitch the 2 small border fabric pieces together and insert the zipper underneath that center seam:

(This first part took me the longest because I haven’t inserted a zipper in several years-guess I need to really work on my zipper skills!)

On the good side of the fabric, mark a line on each side 1/2 inch from the edge. Fold fabric at line and press so you have a nice finished edge. Get a batting scrap and place lining fabric (good side facing down) under batting. Lay one side of “main” fabric on top of batting/lining unit and align first side of border fabric so it “overlaps” main fabric by about 1/4 inch. I inserted a short piece of Wright’s Piping Cord as an accent in this step and then pinned them together as shown below:

(By the way, that trim is not necessary but if you want to do it and don’t have any piping cord lying around, cut a strip of an accent fabric at 1 inch wide. Fold this in half lengthwise and press so good sides face out. Lay this in place instead of piping so that 1/4 inch of it is exposed all along the seam line. This will get you the same type of accent effect!)

Once you have topstitched that seam/piping in place, go ahead and free motion quilt the main fabric and the border fabric on just that one side. All I did here is to outline the small “squares” in the border fabric w/invisible thread and this makes them pop out like little pillows-I love that texture! I quilted the rudimentary form of the plumify it design on the main fabric and I just LOVE THAT texture! Pretty much any quilting design would work here, so do whatever is fun for you. This is how it looks at this step:

Using your rotary cutter and plexiglas ruler, trim this so all excess batting is now cut away. Using scissors, cut away excess batting/lining from the top of the bag so it comes just to the zippered area. Next, repeat this process for the opposite side and then quilt that side. Once the quilting is finished, trim that side as well, and you will end up with this:

Fold across the top so good sides are together, then pin the 3 sides together, taking care to match border edges. Make sure you haven’t completely closed the zipper before you pin and then sew these seams, or it will make turning this inside out a bit of a challenge! (Can you guess how I know that?!!). Once the side seams are sewn, turn inside out and you’ll have your tool tote:

Hope you have fun with this project-it’s pretty quick and a great way to use up scraps and the size is easily modified. If you want a shoulder strap, just throw one in at that last step when you stitch the side seams…I can see myself making many variations of this!

Happy New Year to all and thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog and to encourage me in my sewing/quilting endeavors! I hope all of us have a great year filled with sewing fun!

One Comment

  1. Carol Sloan Says:

    very nice Patsy! I love sewing little bags!