Fat Quarter Project Bag

I've seen a few bags designed for keeping knitting and various other projects in, and they seem nice and useful. So I decided that I would try and make one for myself. I already had a couple of fat quarter packs that I wanted to use for something nice, and this seemed like a good thing to use them for.

The fat quarter packs were mostly travel related, one pack being London themed and the other one being nautical themed, there was another one with some hot air balloons on it, which I used as well. I think overall I used 9 fat quarters, which is less than two standard packs, but I did pick and choose what I wanted to go on the bag.

New Dimentions

I had an idea of a bag in my mind, and I had sneaked some measurements of a bag that I had seen in a shop, so I had to then try to make a pattern. In my mind the first logical step was to make a scale drawing of the bag I wanted, just the generic square-ish shape. I'm glad I did that, because once I had drawn it, I found that I didn't like the proportions of the bag, it was too upright for what I had in mind. So I plucked some new sizes out of the air using a tape measure. When I then drew those sizes up, they looked so much better, so I went with those.

I sat and worked out what pockets I wanted and how to piece it all together, which, of course meant more technical drawings! ;)

Once the drawings were all done I drew out the panels real size on some old news paper, cut them out and used them as the pattern pieces, which were then folded up, put in an envelope and saved for next time.

The bag has a lining and I had to work out how to sew that together with the outside, in a way that didn't leave seams poking out on the inside, and I managed to suss it out. It did involve sewing a top stitch around the top of the bag to sew up the small hole that I left for turning it the right way out, but I think it looks good.

The pockets took a little thinking about, but there wasn't going to be a lining for the pocket, so it was easier than the main bag. The pockets were sewn into the main seams of the bag, and had a small turned over and top stitched edge along the top.

There are three pockets along the front, but none on the back. I wanted a difference to the front and back of my bag, but it would be easy to add more if you wanted to.

One thing I did do, which I wish I had done differently, is to make the front three pockets out of one piece of fabric, instead of trying to make it out of three... It ended badly, and they are a little wonky, but don't look too close...

The two sides are exactly the same, they are a panel with a pocket in them. The side pockets were easier to do, and involved sewing a hem along the top of the pocket and sewing them into the main bag seams. They worked out well.

There is a separate panel for the bottom piece, which gives the bag a fair amount of width, and I made it out of the same material as the handles. Which were folded over and sewn as a tube, and the ends folded inwards before I attached them to the bag.

When sewing the handles on I took a long time carefully sewing a neat square. It can be seen from both sides so I did worry about it, and whilst I used my sewing machine, I only hand cranked it, and went very slowly.

All in all I'm quite pleased with my bag, and seeing as it is one thing that I really made from the first ideas to the actual real thing, I am a little proud. One thing that I think would make it better is to add some kind of interfacing. The bag is a little floppy, its strong enough to hold all my projects (and carted a few waistcoats in making up to Tywyn to do some of that while I was there), but the interfacing would add a little bit of rigidity to the bag.

I am happy to share the pattern I have made with other people. So if you are interested, do send me a message, and I can send you some drawings of the pattern pieces you need and write up some instructions. I have also recently got a facebook page, linked to the instagram page, which you can contact me on, and see what it going on more frequently then a finished project once a week. You can find the facebook page under the name Lemmon Juicer, and the handle on instagram is @lemmonjuicer - go have a look and feel free to like and comment on there.

My First Quilt

Font

A little while ago, I thought I would try my hand at quilting. As usual things like college got in the way, but I made the front of a quilt. I made the front out of a fat quarter pack that I got from Hobbycraft, and I created this pattern. Being the engineer I am I did a technical drawing to see how the pattern would look, and to use as a guide as I was making it.

I finished the front fairly quickly, and it got folded up and put in a draw for quite a while. Part of the reason was that I didn't have anything for the back - to be honest I hadn't actually thought that far ahead!

BUT! I did find a little while later another fat quarter pack (they were packs of six), that I figured would go with the front. Then I struggled with what to do on the back. Did I want another busy pattern like the front? Did I want it to be obvious that it was the back? Does the back need to be boring? I really didn't know. So that fabric sat in the draw with the front of the quilt waiting to be put together!

Back

I finally got around to making the back, I decided that as long as I liked the design on the front and on the back, who cared which side was which! The pattern was much more simple, but I think it looks nice, and was nice to sew together.

The next thing to figure out is how to quilt it all together. First of all I need to get the wadding to go in the middle. Which I'm still yet to do, and after that is done I can put a border around it and I will have finally finished it.

Then after this one, I may make another one!

Fat Quarter Bunting

As a little project for when the best friend came to stay - she had just got a sewing machine and she wanted to come and use mine to build up her confidence (it worked!) - We decided to make some very simple bunting out of fat Quarters.

This weekend the bunting I had made finally went up!

I do apologize in advance for the poor pictures in this post, it is really difficult to take good looking photos in a small attic room with bad lighting!

For the bunting we used six fat quarters, around about the size of a fat quarter pack, although some do only come with five. There are twelve triangles on my set of bunting, and from the same fat quarters we made another set of bunting.

To make the triangles we cut out a triangle template. The template would have fit on an A5 piece of paper, but you can make the template either larger or smaller depending on what size of triangle you want. Just make sure that your two long sides are the same length and then join them up at the top.

For the bunting triangle we cut out two sides which are then sewn together. We drew around the template eight times on each fat quarter to make four bunting triangles (one triangle for each side). This was done on each fat quarter. We then shared the triangles between two sets of bunting with twelve triangles on each.

The two triangles are placed right side together and pinned in place. Using a seam allowance of half an inch, sew along the two long sides of the triangle before turning it the right way out.

It is worth trimming the excess fabric along the bottom of the triangle before it is turned the right way out, this allows a much cleaner and sharper point. It can also be useful to use a knitting needle or a pencil to push the final bit of the point out.

Once all of the triangles have been sewn and turned the right way out, they would benefit from being ironed, which allows them to lie flat and look pretty! :)

To attach all the triangles together we used bias binding, as it can be folded over and sewn down so the raw edges at the top of the triangles are inside and hidden. The bias binding that we used was 25 mm thick and 2.5 meters long. The binding was from Hobbycraft and they come on a little roll, and one roll is 2.5 meters long, so to make two sets, we did use two rolls!

I rolled out the complete length of the binding, and started to place where the triangles would go. I marked the centre of the binding and put a triangle at half an inch from the centre, and another at half an inch the other side. Working out from the centre I was then able to fit all of the triangles on with a gap of an inch between them all. I then pinned them in place and ran a line of stitching along one crease in the bias binding. After that row of stitching I trimmed the edges of the triangles that stick up into the binding, making sure that they had flat tops, so I was able to fold the other side of the binding over and run a line of top stitching along it all to finish it off.

And there we go, fairly simple way of creating bunting! I was really quite pleased with the outcome, and you could make the bunting a lot more special by using scraps of fabric, perhaps some personalised birthday bunting with old baby clothes? Or you could create plain bunting and put letters on them to spell out a greeting or a name? The possibilities are plenty, and with a little bit of creativity you can create something very special, and personal!