The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik and their industry sponsors.
The October Ambassador challenge was to make a bag of our choice using a pattern from ByAnnie.com. Several months ago, we chose the pattern we wanted to make and the fabric we wanted to use. ByAnnie.com generously sent us not only the pattern of our choice, but all the necessary notions and hardware as well. Island Batik generously provided the fabric of our choice, in the appropriate amounts for our chosen pattern.
Here are the items I received in my package:
Here is a close up of the fabric I chose, Stone Strata (designed by Kathy Engle for Lizard Creek Quilting):
I chose a pattern called
Switchback. There was a huge selection of patterns to choose from, so it was hard to decide!
Seems I never learn! As with the
Funky Friends Challenge, I chose a pattern with a skill level above "beginner", even though this was my first attempt at making a bag. The Switchback pattern was marked as a "moderate" skill level. Since this was my first bag ever(!) you would think I would have chosen a pattern marked as "easy", but nope...I liked this one and wanted to make it! Thankfully, I found the pattern to be VERY well written and easy to follow. There were even videos available for some of the pattern sections that were very helpful.
For this project I used Aurifil 50wt thread (#2105 Champagne and #1125 Medium Teal) and a Schmetz Microtez needle, size 12. At times, the layers of the bag were very thick to sew through, but the Schmetz needle handled it like a champ! I had zero problems and no thread breaks!
After cutting out all the fabric pieces, one of the first steps is quilting the bag sections. To quilt, I layered the outer fabric and the lining, with
Soft and Stable sandwiched in between. The quilting lines are marked in chalk at 1" intervals. I used my walking foot for this straight line quilting:
The bag strap and buckles are all made in one step, then set aside until needed, Here are all the completed straps and fasteners with hardware attached:
Here is the bag front, shown with the zipper pocket and two fasteners in place:
Here is the bag flap, which folds over the bag front (shown above):
Sewing the front of the bag onto the side and bottom strip:
Here is the inside of the bag showing the lining and inside pockets (this is after the bag has been assembled, but before it has been turned right side out):
Completed front of bag:
Completed back of bag:
Front of bag under front flap:
This was a challenging project for me! I'm super happy with how it came out though. When the package arrived and I saw all the materials/notions needed, I was a bit daunted...but as I said above, the pattern was very easy to follow with each step clearly explained. I highly recommend the
ByAnnie.com patterns to anyone!
4 comments
Beautiful bag! You did an awesome job!
You did a beautiful job! Happy sewing.
Awesome job!!! It looks fabulous!!!
Wow, you did pick a difficult one but it looks great!