Project Bag for Miss J--Ninth Finish for 2nd Quarter Finish-A-Long 2018

Last weekend, I went to a quilt show that featured projects all stitched by students of one of my favorite local teachers. I really enjoyed the projects at the show. I LOVED catching up with the participants and the teacher!

There were a few vendors and there were also some awesome deals! The red fabrics and dyed chenille might make it into a quilt project soon. I warped some of my circle templates so being able to have a few more at such an affordable price is great! My liquid stitch needed replacing and the velcro was too good to pass up! The cost for all this bounty was eleven dollars!

Purchases from the quilt show

Butterfly fabric was too short too use

After finishing the busy bag for Miss K; I was ready to apply what I learned to the same project by stitching a busy bag for Miss J. I removed the fabrics from the storage box. Right away, I had a problem. The design was printed lengthwise and the bag is cut widthwise.

 I was short about three inches of having it work. I thought about piecing a border to the end of the fabric or in the middle of the fabric; but, in the end, I decided to select different fabric. After I made a selection, I instant messaged my daughter to tell Miss J about the fabric she chose and to ask if she liked my fabric combination. She liked the brighter colors. I was relieved that she was okay with switching fabrics as generally, she is not!  Of course, the fabric change meant that I needed to buy more zipper tape!

New fabric combination

This flower fat quarter was gifted to me at dinner at a retreat many years ago. I've petted it often. I actually had two fat quarters of this print. I made a small bag with the first one about four years ago. I bought the orange fabric to use in a hexagon project and decided that ribbon would fit the bill better. The purple was what I used in my QAYG project.

Playing with the quilting 

The black  zipper tape/pulls weren't right for this project. The beauty of this day and age is that you can order most anything online! I ordered plum zipper tape/pulls. I also reminded myself that moving these fat quarters out of my stash is not an inexpensive process!

Finished front

While I waited for the zipper tape and pulls to arrive, I quilted the body of the bag. I chose to use a variety of polyester threads that blended with the motif or blended with the background. Most of the time, I followed the outline of the motif. Stitching the flowers though, I had to play just a little! I could have quilted an all over design in one thread color and been finished in 20 minutes or less; but, because I LIKE the quilting process, I had fun quilting! I spent about four hours quilting this little piece!

Finished inside

Next up was making the strap, binding the mesh pockets and binding the vinyl pocket. These steps went much quicker the second time around! I did try topstitching the strap differently which I liked. I tried attaching the binding differently to the vinyl pocket and that didn't work well.

I did like the color zipper that I ordered. It is hard to tell what the real color is when you are shopping online! I liked stitching the zipper pulls as one unit and then cutting them apart. Next time, I would make the unit just a bit longer as it was a challenge to tie knots in the end of each string! I still managed to get one zipper zipping in a different direction. I don't know how I manage to do that!

I think the binding went on a little better this time. I'm still not super happy with that part; but, I do plan to try again. These little bags would make terrific gifts although, it still took me more than seven hours to stitch. I must be super slow!

For the bag, I used one yard of fabric. I bought a yard of fabric so my goal of using a net of 50 yards from stash still stands at having sewn 14 1/2 yards from my stash. I have 35 1/2 yards to go to achieve my goal of a net loss of 50 yards from my stash this year. This is finish number nine for the quarter and it was goal number seven on my 2nd Quarter Finish-A-Long list for 2018.

Finished bag ready for action