but first - here is a photo of the fabric/etc I "had" to use:
- it was a "paper bag challenge" that a group of us, who are on a quilty yahoogroup, decided to have - we all met for lunch one day (back in about Febuary) and we brought and swapped paper bags of bits (there were a few loose rules - the bag had to have a fat quarter, a couple of other biggish bits, a handful of scraps, and some beads/threads/something). The idea was to then make something with the fabric, adding stuff from our own stash if we wanted to (and we did not have to use absolutely every bit of what we got, just at least some of the big bits and some of the other stuff).
There were some really nice fabrics in the bag I got!
... so ... I grabbed a bit of black (I figured that black would make all the different colours sing together ;-) homespun from my stash and went crazy and sewed strips together and cut them up and sewed them together then added batting and backing (a bit of old shiny dark blue curtain fabric I got from a garage sale or somewhere) and I quilted it, to make this round thingy:
... yes - I did what is normally a big "no no" and quilted it around and around and around in circles ... the dizzy heights of creativity?
(or running around in circles going nowhere? lol)
Then, after resisting the temptation to abandon my original bag idea and leave it as a round quilt (it could have looked good as a wall/table quilt with prairie points or something around the edge ;-), I gathered the circle up and made it into a bag:
I used some more of the fat quarter to make the bit around the top of the bag, and the handles are made from strips cut from an old t-shirt and crocheted.
The original intended use was as a crochet bag - so I could spread all the balls of yarn and bits for whatever I was working on all over the bottom and be able to find stuff ... but it has come in handy for taking all my junk to work - there is room in there for a smallish handbag, my camera, a small box or whatever of sewing and/or some crocheting, and there is room for lunch and a drink bottle and whatever other small items I might want to throw in there ... (and it sits nicely on the floor behind the drivers seat of the Land Rover and things don't fall/slide out and roll around while I drive to work ;-)
An hour or so after I took the above photo of the finished bag, I decided to go grab the camera from where I had left it (IN the bag) ready to put the photos onto the computer ... and as I walked into the room I sprung somebody climbing in ready to make herself at home!
B$#^%& cat! LOL
Spook likes sleeping on/in whatever I leave lying on the bed.
Spook likes sleeping on/in whatever I leave lying on the bed.
so ... what is that other thing, behind the bag, that also looks black and dotty like the bag?
well - it is this:
I had some leftovers from the big bag, and I had not used any of the bag of beads I got with the fabric, so I decided to make a matching smaller bag (I was originally thinking of making a small purse but it kind of grew ;-) out of my leftovers and use the beads on that ... the other side is black fabric (no coloured bits) with lots of lime green quilting (same colour as on the front) ... I knew that big roll of lime green sewing thread would come in handy for something one day - LOL
It still needs some binding on the top, and some kind of handles ... and the beads will either be part of the dangly thing used to hold the bag closed, or I might sew them onto the front of the bag (have not decided yet) ... or I might decide to still do a small purse as well, and use the beads on that! (with me - anything might happen)
I just realised I had already taken a photo of the bag ... but only because the bag just happened to be in this photo that I took the other day!
yes - Diesel also likes to make himself comfortable on the bed!
Hmmm ... talking about bed that is where I should be now!
(oops?)
but before I go ... I have one more photo that I have already uploaded here ...
... last, but definitely not least - I got a surprise in the mail the other day - Mum made and sent me 3 ATCs! (Artists Trading Cards) ... and I think they are wonderful ;-)
Posts
Andrea how have you atached your tiny pieces to the round black bag?
ReplyDeleteYour mother's ATCs are great and I understand why you are thrilled to have them.
Maureen
to answer Maureen's question - the coloured bits are not sewn ON to the bag - they are sewn IN
ReplyDelete- I started with a whole pile of strips of coloured fabric, and I cut a whole pile of similar sized strips of black fabric and sewed strips of black to the coloured strips, then sewed them all together so I had what looked like a bit of fabric with black and coloured stripes, then I cut that into strips (across the "stripes") and sewed each of those strips to a black strip, and sewed them together - resulting in what looks like black fabric with square dots ... (then I trimmed it into a bit neater circle and made it into a bag)
It is fun to do strips like that, so I will probably do the same thing again sometime - but this time I will try to remember to take some photos of the work in progress and post them here ;-)
Oh Wow Andrea, what a lot of work has gone into the bag. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply.
Maureen