Friday, March 2, 2012

A Project Bag for the Knitters

I love charm squares. Who doesn't huh? 


So I usually buy them without having any particular project in mind, but just because I figure I will figure something out to do with them eventually. And they are pretty to look at in the meantime until I find a project. But I had a bunch of leftovers after doing my Fiesta Table Runner project so I was googling for free charm square patterns when I came across a wonderful Jewel Shaped Bag tutorial on Pinterest by the Mad Quilter. I pinned it to my Pinterest Sew 'n Love board and then jotted down the basic pattern in my notebook.


Then I took a few days of mulling it over in my head. That's what I do. I sew in my head, plot, plan and work out all the details before actually starting a new project. Does everybody do that? I am always sewing something in my mind.


I decided that I wanted to back the main bag with my lining fabric (leftover sheet) and quilt it, then bind the edges rather than sewing in a separate lining. My reason for that is that I have found that lining odd shaped bags often doesn't work out so well. The lining doesn't fit snug and gets bunchy or flappy inside there. So I had all the details kind of figured out (well except a few things I forgot, I'll get to that) and I started laying it out. Then I went back to take a peek at the assembly part on the tutorial and Guess What? The blog has been privatized. So there is no tutorial for me to link to now. Sorry about that!


 This is how I laid out the fabrics and stitched the rows together. I used a fusible fleece for the batting, so I ironed that down to hold it in place. Then I cut the backing a little bigger and pinned it really well to quilt it. I am not so talented at quilting yet so I did a simple stitch in the ditch around each block then a diagonal row each direction.
 This is how my quilting turned out. Not bad. I didn't have a fabric marker to mark the diagonal lines so I just eyeballed them from corner to corner. Not perfectly straight but I have X'd a lot of rag quilt blocks in the past so that experience came in handy!
I cut my bias tape 2 1/2 inches wide because I can never get my binding stitched down perfect if I go with 2 1/4" for some reason. I bound the two ends of the rectangle (??) piece. I guess that's not very clear to understand but when you fold the thing in half it makes the top of the bag. Now for some reason I can never quite remember how to make mitered corners with continuous binding so I always have to look that up every time I want to do it. This is where I realized that I had no idea how to sew continuous binding on an inside corner. Praise be to Google! I found a video right away and it actually worked! I think that little V in the center looks halfway decent anyway. 
Sewing a mitered corner video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1daucbSCVuw
Binding an inside corner video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VGNcDoI-R8


 The awesome thing about this bag is how it stands up at an angle, so it will make a great project bag for carrying your knitting projects and the yarn feeds right out of the open top of the bag. 


Only problem is I don't know how to knit... sigh. I have tried and that particular crafty gene seems to have escaped me. Oh well, I love sewing and I made two of these awesome bags to send off to some knitty friends for my Pay It Forward project. Hope they will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them!


Visit Sweet Little Gal's Turquoise Lovin' Party to see more great turquoise projects too!


I am joining these awesome blog parties too!
The Girl Creative

7 comments:

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    ~ robin

    itsrobinwithani.com

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