Good morning and welcome to another Sunny day in the world of blogging quilters. Thanks so much Carol from Just Let Me Quilt for coordinating this HOT - HOT - HOT adventure.
Later this summer I am heading to NJ to visit with some family and some friends. I just know that the friends part will include shopping for fabric and yarn at some of my old favorite haunts.
Did you know that NJ has pretty much banned the use of paper and plastic bags at stores. Pretty much it's a bring your own bag world there now.
That being the case I thought I'd make a shopping bag to take on my trip. Since I didn't want boring I thought I'd take the Florida sun to Jersey with me.
I pulled the stuff from various stash areas in my crafting spaces. I didn't think I needed a pattern. I used a local food store fabric bag as my guide for sizing.
As many of you know I have a thing for Cotton Canvas Drop cloths as a great go to cheap fabric for odd creations. I thought it would work perfectly for a shopping tote. I didn't want to line it and because it does fray I thought I would just make it using French Seams.
I also planned out, before cutting, how to use the finished edges on the original tarp for the very top of the tote to avoid fraying there.
All things considered my plan worked well. The French seams were easy to do but because of them I mucked up the size I cut the boxed bottom by a bit. I think I did my measuring backward when adding in the additional fabric for the extra seams.
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I would have preferred it a bit wider and less deep at the bottom. I don't think it will stop me from piling fabric into it though.
While I was knocking out the numbers for cutting the tote I knew I would have a few good sized scraps to use and decided to make a small zip pouch for all of the diagrams, drawings, pens and maybe a pattern or 2 that I tend to take shopping with me. Bonus was that I found that cute little tassel for the zipper pull while I was looking for a yellow zipper. The yellow fabric is a lot sunnier than I could get it to show in a photo.
I can't begin to count how many zip pouches I have made over the course of my quilting life. This little super simple cutie was a bear to make with no recent practice. I really should not start a new project at 10PM. I put the first side together just fine. Second side needed me to totally rip it appart because I put the layers in the wrong order. Zipper on the bottom just does not work. Then after I fixed that problem I turned the thing inside out and closed the turn opening and was pressing the finished pouch and I realized that I never actually sewed the applique in place. It's currently holding on with Heat and Bond Lite. It does look great and maybe one of these days I will open it back up and sew it down before I toss it in the laundry.
Well if nothing else I am ready to have fun buying fabric on my trip.
Thanks for stopping by for the visit and please take a minute or two or three to visit all of the other participants in this fun, sun event. I've listed them all here for you to refer to.
