Grommet Bag Completed!

Quite a while ago I made a Grommet Bag for my mother for mother's day. Of course, I couldn't post about it until it made it all the way to Australia and she had opened it. By the time this happened I completely forgot about it. But here it is!

The pattern I used only needed 4 pieces of 20"x18" material (2 for the outside, 2 for the inside) for the main part, 2 strips of 5" of 32" fabric for the straps, 2 pieces of 5"x5" for the phone pocket and 2 pieces of 20"x14" for the inside pockets. The outside pocket is mostly decorative and is made out of 2 fat quarters of of contrasting fabric with a big button. You also need 8 grommets.

The wadding was supposed to be 4 pieces of 20"x18" for the main part, 2 strips of 2 1/4" for the inside of the strap, 1 piece of 9"x10" for inside the front pocket, 1 piece of 5"x5" for the phone pocket and 2 pieces of 7"x20" for the inside pocket.

There's a similar pattern for a grommet bag using 5" charm squares at the Moda Bake Shop.

You can make the pockets to whatever size you what. Just measure whatever you want them for and sew the seams accordingly.

One thing I strongly suggest is that you just use a thin cotton for the wadding. I was forced to use polyester and it's just a nightmare to work with. I ended up only using it for the main part and the straps and I used interfacing for the rest of it so that it wasn't so bulky.

Mum loved the bag. I loved it too and plan to make another for myself.

Grommet Bag

I've signed up to a class in May to make a Grommet Bag at my local sewing store (Sew Creative). I'm currently umm-ing and ah-ing over what material to choose for the bag. Here are some pictures I've collect online so far.



I was also thinking perhaps I should use Japanese inspired prints (so that I have a bag to match by riduclous collection of Dogstar). I tend to like wearing black, reds and greys so thought these prints might look good!

Amy Butler's Sun Surf Halter

I've been desperate to extend my quilting skills to dressmaking and was prompted along the other day when a bunch of Amy Butler patterns caught my eye while I was material browsing in John Lewis. I purchased quite a few of them but thought I'd start off with the easy Sun Surf Halter.

I have never made any clothes before (except for a pair of very baggy pants I made in sewing class in year 7 under the direction of a rather cranky teacher that used to throw chairs at us) so thought I would buy some cheap plain cotton first to practise on.

I learned a few things (like remember to buy matching thread for your machine, try to stitch in a straight line, and having the sewing machine and iron plugged into the same socket so you have to keep switching is a big pain). I also think I will make a much smaller size next time.

I'm very much looking forward to being able to wear this to the beach!

Finished Barrels of Fun

This was my second quilt and everything went a lot faster than my first quilt despite the fact that this was a much bigger quilt. I used polyester for the batting and do admit that it's a bit of a pain to work with. In my first quilt I used cotton and it sandwiched a lot better than the polyester and was a lot easier to feed through the machine and quilt.

I was in a bit of a rush to get this one finished so that our guests had something to sleep under so I didn't do that much quilting. I absolutely despise the sandwiching and quilting part of the process (up to attaching the binding which I love to do by hand in front of some BBC romance) so I may or may not quilt some more of it in the future.

Overall I'm super pleased with myself for finishing it so quickly and I just love the colours and the pattern. It cheers the room up nicely and I'm sure our future guests will be happy to have something to sleep under.

Dream a Little Dream & Wildflowers

 

  

Do I spend my pay on food or material?

First Steps on Barrels of Fun

I have well and truly started on my next quilt now. As I mentioned in the last post it's called Barrels of Fun and it can be found in Fat Quarter Fun. I won't copy out her instructions here (because I'm sure she could sue me) but I highly recommend the book so if you do happen to pick it up and try this pattern (or one like it) here's a few tips.

First of all, the instructions said to cut out some squares and rectangles and join them together on a diagonal. I think there is a typo in the text and the way they tell you to line it up is actually reverse to the picture they show you. Basically, the back of the piece after they've been put together on a 45 degree angle, sewn and then trimmed should like this picture:

After I had figured it all out I sewed away until I had done all of my pieces.

Then I had to think about how I was going to pair them up. Each block would have 8 of these pieces so I wanted 2 from each colour group. So I paired them up making sure that every two colours would pair with another two colours (so that I had four different colours all together).

Then I had to sew the pairs into the blocks of four. Basically, I made sure that each block had a windmill in the middle with blades of four different colours.

 

Then I had to piece the blocks together. Each intersection of four blocks made up a new windmill so I had to make sure each of those windmills also had four different colours. I'm sure you could do it another way but I thought this would at least make sure the colour was distributed evenly across the quilt (with the exception of some double colours along the edge).

It took a while but finally the colours all lined up (it helps to have a combinatorist in the house). I'd love to hear comments on whether or not you think the colours are distributed evenly.

The last thing to do was to make sure that when I sewed all the pieces together I wouldn't destroy my order. I did this on my first quilt and was very angry with myself. This time I labelled each row with a number (1-5) and each column with a letter (a-d).

Now I just have to sew them up and add the borders! I would also love suggestions about border colours. I was thinking perhaps a navy print (like the one with the cherries on it). I'm going to have a small inner border, a medium sized middle border made of the same fabric as in the quilt and then and even larger outer border.

Next project: Barrels of Fun

From Karen Snyder's Fat Quarter Fun I'm putting together the above block to make Barrels of Fun with the following material (feat. a lot of Amy Butler's Love, Joel Dewberry's Deer Valley and others).