Child's Tote Bag

Sew, I'm at it again :) As I mentioned my nieces birthday is upon us.  I made her the Coral, Queen of the Sea doll but she also "needs" a camping bag like her Mom and Nana.  I made this bag about 10 years ago and loved it.  I used a canvas owl print fabric, and it was larger but basically the same.  This adorable fabric is made by Timeless Treasures and it's the perfect fabric for a camping tote bag.  The inside fabric is sleeping bags, using my stash.  I love using what I have on hand #usingmystashup! :)
In looking for a quick pattern I went to Pinterest, I ended up using The Reusable Market Bag posted by maricucu.blogspot.co.uk.
I cut the outside and inside fabric together at once so that all the edges would line up perfectly.

 I decided to use make the smaller option.  I didn't want the bag to swallow up my niece.  She's only 6...but in hindsight I wish I had made the larger one.  I think she would have been alright.  Really the small bag can hold a cartoon of eggs and one head of Romaine lettuce and you're done.  Luckily she'd never want to carry these items so we're good!  :)

 This bag starts off pretty straight forward, sewing around the handles, cut slits in seam around the curves for ease in the fabric so everything will lay nice and flat when you turn the bag right side out.  Always iron and set your seam.  Trim the seam allowances and clip corners to also help with the final look of the bag.  These steps will give the bag a more finished look, which I really like.

Now follow the pattern very closely for sewing the handles together, it gets a little tricky!  You stack the outside bag ontop of the inside bag, both right sides out.  You stick your hand up inside the first layer grabbing the other layers and flip them inside out.  Sew your seam and pull right sides out and magically the seams are all hidden inside, and the handles are made!

Doesn't that look nice?

 We sew a 1/4 around the neck of the bag, again this is all to make the bag nice and polished off.  These little steps really dial in your projects.

With the sides of the bag, you carefully sew them up without catching the handles.  I'm a pinner.  Are you a pinner?  And I never sew over my pins, I hear some do but I was always told that was a no no..and contrary to belief I am not a law breaker!  ;)

 We'll fold the handle in half towards the center of the bag and stitch in the ditch (sew in the seam).

Closing the bottom of the bag, fold the sides in at a natural fold line following the handle fold.  Sew the seam on the right side of fabric (I know, I too thought,whatttt) but it works! Then flip the inside out

sew another seam on the bottom of the bag. This is a French seam, it hides the seams on the outside and inside..sew smart and clean! 

Here's a peak at the inside bag.  See how all the seams are encased?  I love that!  I like to hide all of my seams. Nothing is better than when you give a gift and they question if it's handmade or not.  That makes it all worth it for me!















There are a ton of similar bags available on Pintrest.  Let me know your favorites!

One thank you from this lovely girl makes all the time you put into making a handmade gift completely worth it!  All my heart strings are strung all at once! :)

Coral, Queen of the Sea

Have y'all seen this panel by Moda?   It's quite adorable!  I thought this would be the perfect little gift for my niece who's turning 6. Her favorite colors are pink and purple.  And so were mine, and probably every other 6 year old girl.                                            

With one panel you get one doll, Coral, her stuffed animal Charlie, the sea horse (yes, I did just make up his name), a pillow, and of course bedding  - not to mention a cute mini skirt and a fishtail skirt.  A girl needs options, I totally get it!  

I brought this project to my office to work on during my lunch break, and the owner of the company stumbled upon my sewing room I've been hiding at the office.  He walked in, put his hands on his hips and finally said, "So this is the sewing room?"  :)

I started with the bedding, and used leftover batting I had on hand.  I needed to piece it, so I used The Original Quilt Basting Spray.  This stuff works wonders doesn't it? 
Leave a little opening when you're sewing to turn everything right side out.  I always leave the smallest possible opening - I don't favor hand sewing!  :/

To mark the opening, aka the "do not sew zone", I use two pins in the same location.  Whatever your technique is, just don't forget it or you'll be busting out our old friend the seam ripper.

I quilted little floating hearts randomly in the swirl of fish.

 The pillow comes next.  These are all super simple.  You are just cutting around on the dotted line, sewing using 1/4" seam, nothing tricky but super cute!

Next up: Coral!

To make sure you get these lined up perfectly, I thought I was being super smart and placed the cut-outs against the light, using it as my light box to ensure proper placement.

Smart, right?  Wrong!  I was leaning over my iron and didn't realize it until...

Yup!  I got myself good! I have never really burned myself in all these years.  I guess it was about time.  I now have a scar, and I don't think it's going to go away. I don't have any tattoo's so this is my new mark of passion!  :)  Silver lining, lets go with it.

Did you notice my little wrist pin cushion?  I love it.  I use it all the time!  There are new magnetic ones out there now a days but I like my old school one. 

Once I stopped burning myself, it was time to sew Coral together. She has the cutest little face.  Just like my niece! Her little arms and legs were tough to turn right side out, and because I was at the office, I didn't have all my normal tools. Sewing tweezers would have worked like a charm, but I was improvising, so I jabbed a pen in there.  It was a bit time consuming but two arms, two legs, and I was done.

Fish tail anyone?  Maybe I should call it a mermaid tail?  That sounds nicer.

I'm a huge fan of ironing.  I hope you are too.  It makes everything look so much nicer.  I iron all my seams to set them then if I'm opening up the seam I iron that too.

Ugh - more turning right side out.  Belts! Who knew Coral had so many belts! (now I know how my husband feels about my belts...just kidding, it's more my shoes...we need options!)  My fingers were exhausted by the time I was done!  I didn't have any safety pins that day either.  It was challenging! :)

I quickly wised up the following day and brought in a safety pin for pulling the drawstring belts through her two skirts.

On to the stuffing!  This is more challenging than it appears!  Her arms and legs are little and my fingers are not!  You really have to work the stuffing down to her pippy toes and finger tips!  Moda suggests toes first, then arms, head then body.  Once you stuff the legs stitch across where the body and legs meet for a bendy spot.  Same for the arms. 

Hand stitch all the openings and you are done!

Super cute!  :)

Bucket'ish List, Outdoor Quilt Show Temecula California

I had the adventurous idea to attend this years Outdoor Quilt Show in Temecula, California. Let me back track for one second.  On my official bucket list is the Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon.  The Sisters show has taken place the second Saturday of July for over 40 years! It's the largest Outdoor Quilt show in the world! But...I live in California and the Temecula show is much more feasible without much planing!  I woke up early with much anticipation, jumped in the car and in about 90 minutes I was there!  Oh what a site! 

Quilts were hung from the buildings of the Old Town district - it just felt so right!  If you've never been here before it's as if you've stepped into a time machine.  Some of the sidewalks are even old wood beams.  I do feel like they're missing an old town swinging door Saloon. What?  I can't be the only one thinking that?  Right? :O)

Families were out in full force looking at all of the quilts. I loved standing back and hearing everyone talk about all the different quilts they saw.  I was wearing my 'Quilter' Tee so people would just say random quilty things to me.  

Unlike a conventional quilt show where you know most people are going because they (we) are nuts about quilts, with a show like this, you get the run of the mill people who can just enjoy the rawness of a beautiful quilt.  Nobody's discussing the fabric line or the pattern that was used. Instead, I heard how they liked the chosen colors or 'wow look at the detail in this one!' 

If nothing else I hope people left the show feeling inspired.

The weather really cooperated. It was about 80 degrees with a nice wind so the quilts just danced in the breeze.

And they really were just strung from everywhere! My heart was singing!  

I really liked this picture: a vintage quilt next to a Starbucks.  A little old with a little new...and I'll take a Pumpkin Latte please! That will make Fall come faster!  It will!

I have this Sewing Quilt Kit on the left below.  It's called She Who Sews by Quilting Treasures. Actually, my Mom bought the same kit.  We have the same cute unmade quilt.  I must add that to the must make soon list.  Isn't it cute? Speaking of cute...The Farmers Wife Shop in Temecula is pretty spectacular. If you're in the area stop on in!  You can see it hiding in the back left of the photo below.

Lovin that wonky star quilt in the middle. 

Walking around the streets of Old Town with all these exquisite quilts really made me feel like Fall is finally upon us!  Finally! 

I hope you enjoyed the outdoor Quilt Show in Temecula, CA without leaving you're seat!  Spending the day walking around town taking pictures of all of these quilts just made my week.  I feel life is so short and I have a lot more quilts in me!  Ha!  Happy quilting!

Cutest $1 Tote Bag Ever!

I'm not sure how it is where you live, but in Los Angeles you have to pay for market bags, or any bags for that matter. Let's not even talk about all of the damage the plastic bags are doing to our beautiful Earth.

So take out you're sewing machines!  

We are going to make the cutest $1 Tote bags ever and stop using those plastic bags for good!

You know those dollar bags everyone seems to be selling these days?  I have a bundle of them.
Truth is, I only want to hit the market once a week!  Which means I need about five of these bags to be in the car, ready for deployment for my early morning market day!
The only thing is, as you can see, they aren't very cute.
So, what I've done is made those unattractive but utilitarian bags fun to use!  Who wants to carry around a boring, logo'ed bag when you can alter them slightly and make them super cute!?  I'm telling you, I've got the cutest bags in town!  And it takes no time at all!

Start by picking a bag and take out the hard plastic bottom if it has one. Measure the space you'd like to cover.  I like to do a strip down the middle to cover a logo or just add some pizazz.  Or, you can just do the exact size of a logo you're looking to cover up.  Often, I can just use a large scrap.  While at a quilt show, I like looking for fun and different fabric that would be unusual and unexpected on a bag.  I've found some really great imports from Japan at Quiltcon; bears dancing with umbrellas, deers with red glasses, ohh it's just endless!  Plus I like to make some of the bags a little masculine so my husband can use them as well.

For this example, I'm going to use a panel of Bee Creative fabric by Moda (and again, you can use whatever you have on hand it doesn't need to be a panel as you'll see in some of the finished bags below).

Measure and cut your fabric 1/4" larger than needed on all sides.

Fold back the raw edge 1/4" and press the seam on all the sides.

Lay the panel over the space you're looking to cover.  Sometime you need a little finessing to make it fit in perfect.

Pin real well, and sew slow.  It's super easy to catch other parts of the bag in the seam by accident.  Guess how I know that!...

 

I like to sew the fabric down super close to the  edge, but again that's up to you. You can also do a fun fancy stitch.

 You too can do this, even over breakfast!

Besides grocery getters, you can make these into your own personalized gift bags.  Let's be honest - those gift bags sold in stores are a small fortune.  Giving a gift in one of these cuties raises the gift giving bar.  Who doesn't love receiving handmade gifts? Even better is these bags can be used and reused for years to come. Think how many plastic bags you'll be saving?  And Mother Earth cheers!

Here's another option, both are equally fun. 

On this grey bag there's a logo on both sides.  

So I'm just going to open up the seam...

 place this adorable Robert Kaufman clothes line pin fabric across the middle...

 and same thing as before measure out the the size strip you'd be happy with.  Fold the raw edge under, once is all it needs.  Give it a quick stitch on both sides, again I prefer getting super close to the edge.  I think it gives it a more profession look.

Once you sew both sides; front and back, tops and bottoms, sew the sides back up.  

Flip it right sides out and you my friend are done! 

How cute are these!? 

I've got the cutest bags in town! 

And sew can you! :)