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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Fat Quarter Bags

I made a pile of fat quarter bags in May to give away as gifts in June.  Despite the fact that they were given away I'm just now finishing the blog post for them.  I'm not always timely...so don't be too surprised when I put up a post of the sewing I did for Christmas!

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I had some lovely fat quarters left over from the sewing I did at Christmas and wanted to make something that would be appropriate for a wide age range (the youngest recipient was 3, the oldest recipient was older ;-)).  

project 1 fabric

After thinking on it and looking through the blogs I subscribe to I saw this tutorial for Fat Quarter Bags from Amy Smart on her blog, Diary of a Quilter. And I thought, "That's it!"  But I can't leave well enough alone and I made a few changes. :-)

So, here's what I did:

1. Added sew in interfacing to give the bags more body.  I imagine iron on interfacing, fusible fleece, quilt batting, re-purposed jeans or another hefty material would work as well.

2. Added a pocket, because you always need a pocket, right?  The pocket was sewn on to the fabric and interfacing for a bit more stability.

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3. The bags are totally reversible.  I boxed the corners (both the outside fabric and the lining) prior to turning it right side out.

4. I left the opening to turn the bag right-side out at the top (between the handles) instead of along a side, then top stitched it closed. I thought this worked out better since the bags are reversible.

DSC_4445 edited

The directions for the tutorial worked really well, but I think if I make these again I'm going to construct them a bit differently. I'll probably sew the inner and outer bags separately, then sew the bags together while adding the handles. I'm thinking that with the alterations to the tutorial I made it'll be a bit easier to put it together that way. I learn something new with each project, even if it's that I prefer to do things using a different method!

Until later!

4 comments:

Sadie said...

Your bags are wonderful! If you do make them again, you should do your own tutorial showing how you did it :-) I bet the lucky recipients loved them :-)

Anonymous said...

They look amazing! Great job...and better late than never. =)

Barbara said...

Those look like great bags! Cute fabric combinations too (:

pi.pa.po. said...

The bags look great, I love the colours!