My Huge Quilt and a New Bag
Does anyone else find it super hard to come up with blog post titles? Should I make a (poor) attempt at humor, or just actually describe what the post is about? Should they be short and snappy or long and descriptive? Does it really matter? No… I know it doesn’t, but still…
Ok, my bag. I looked for some inspiration pictures of crossbody bags I loved and found a checkboard one with a white background and collection of pinks and greens for the other squares. That bag had been made with a fabric printed with the pattern but I knew I could piece a similar pattern.
So I drove thirty minutes to the one quilt shop near me that carries an acceptable selection of solids and picked out a spring color palette. Then I chopped it all into little bitty squares. And then I put it back together into checkboard panels. And then I chopped it up again, into bag pieces. And then I put back together, into a bag. Seriously, all sewing is about is cutting stuff up just to put it back together.
In the messy stage of bag math, itty bitty fabric pieces, and zipper decisions.
As simple as it might seem, I actually struggled a lot with this bag. I was on a tight deadline to give it as a gift and was very stressed out. Precision piecing is not my strength, so I ended up fighting with these little checkboard panels to quilt them in the ditch. My ditches were very crooked ditches. But the imperfections are just what makes it handmade… I guess.
And then I was trying putting the bag together in a big rush. There was a lot of layers in some places that were a struggle to sew through, like those rounded corners. Just pretend you don’t see all the wrinkles, please :) Since I wanted to use stuff from my stash I had to use two different shades of green zippers. My strap was purchased at Joanns. Although I love the texture, it’s a little flimsy for a bag strap. Next time I’d go with more durable webbing.
After all of that, I didn’t even end up giving the bag to the recipient. Once I had finished it, I saw all of the hours and tears that went into it and I didn’t want it to be wasted on someone who might not even like the color scheme or style. I wanted this bag to be used and loved. So I kept it. And I have used it a lot. Right after finishing a project all you can see are the imperfections. All of those supposed-to-be-invisible quilting lines. The crooked seams. The wrinkled seams. The uneven topstitching. But after using the bag for just one day it becomes… just a bag. Like any other bag. And I love it a little more because I made it but I don’t hate it anymore for its imperfections- because regardless of the funky seams, it works perfectly, just like any other bag.
Project Overview: Checkered Crossbody Bag
Finished: 5/17/24 (I made it in 4 days!)
Materials: Kona and Moda Bella solids, quilt batting, stash zippers, webbing
Pattern: none, I did all the math and design myself and then proceeded to discard all evidence of it (oops, should’ve saved it)
Cost: $16
Time: I’m guessing 9 or 10 hours
I’m also making slow but continuous progress on my large, FPP pineapple quilt.
I have 9 blocks down and 7 more to go. Once I get into the rhythm of sewing blocks it gets easier and faster. I’ve started listening to podcasts when I do mindless sewing, crocheting, or hand stitching. I love just getting lost in the story of the podcast as I work with my hands; the time flies by. Besides finishing the blocks, I still have a TON of flying geese and square-in-a-square blocks to make.
Working with so much absence of color can kind of get old after a while. I’ve been alternating working on this quilt with progressing through A Quilter’s Guide to Color by Rachel Hauser. It’s a workbook all about understanding how colors work together in a quilt and it has you sew lots of colorful samples throughout the book. By the end, I should have a lap sized bear paw quilt, in a crazy, scrappy style! Whenever I’m bored of black and white I come back to the book and just play with color for a little bit.
