Silver Frame Purse, Second Addition

 

Here is the second bag I made from the Silver Frame Purse pattern by Quilt Plus.  This one is made of solid home furnishing fabric.  Again I added the zippered pocket on the outside and one on the inside as well as a patch pocket on the inside.The lining fabric is a gold colored brocade fabric and really makes the inside fancy looking.  This bag is more dressy looking since it is a solid fabric and will be nice to carry for those occasions when I want a dressier bag.  I do need to get or make a couple of different length straps as these can be changed as well.

One thing I didn’t talk about when I showed the other bag was what I used for interfacing.  With both bags I used headliner fabric that I purchased at JoAnn Fabrics.  This is really close to Soft and Stable, an interfacing sold especially for purse making,  Headliner fabric is what is says it is and us used when people redo cars and need to replace the soft fabric on the inside roof.  It has a thin layer of foam with a covering on one side with a soft knitted fabric.  The Soft and Stable has the knit covering on both sides but I have found the headliner fabric performs just as well and for me it is more readily available and a little cheaper too.

Either one of them doesn’t have to be quilted but can be quilted like the other bag.  I did straight stitch where the seams would have been on the other pattern just to keep it in place.  Another thing I do is trim it back so it doesn’t end up in the seam allowances if it is secured in another area.  Cut the corners out to reduce bulk too.  These tips will save you a lot of grief if you use this product.  I love using this product it as my bags don’t sag and hold their shape.

I used an iron on interfacing for the lining of both bags to give it some body without adding anymore bulk.
The zipper pulls on this bag I made from a large bead with the beading wire again.  I am glad I figured out how to make my own zipper pulls as I have had a hard time finding ones that I like and that were not so expensive.

Wow, I am on a roll getting caught up writing these blog posts.  Will have to see what I have next on the agenda to write about.  The beginning of the summer is always so busy with grandchildren's school programs, family gatherings, grandchildren’s visits, yard and garden work and this summer I sure got behind on my posting and will try to do better now. 

Until Later,
Lynn

Silver Frame Purse by Quilt Plus

 

One of the things I purchased while in Paducah for the AQS show was this purse frame and pattern called Silver Frame Purse from Quilt Plus.  The frame is unique in that the fabric cover can be easily changed by unscrewing the end of a rod and replacing the purse body for another one.

Here are the fabrics I chose for the front on the left – all black and white prints cut and laid out ready to stitch together.  The fabrics on the right were used on the inside of the bag.  I loved this bird print and wanted the birds all standing on their feet on the inside so made a seam in the bottom rather than use one whole piece of fabric.  The spark is the fuchsia fabric for the trim on one pocket and the zipper.  This pattern did not have any pockets but I like pockets in all my purses/bags so added one zippered pocket to the outside and one zippered pocket and another patch pocket to the inside of the bag.  Added touch to the photo on the left is my feet, painted toe nails and all.

  

This what the body of the bag looked like after quilting it.  Notice I added faux leather piping along the seams.  Not too hard to do and did learn one thing about using the piping.  I took a tweezers and pulled about 1/4” of the piping cord out and snipped it off at each of the ends so when the seams were stitched there was less bulk in that area.  That worked really well and I plan to do that again. 

Here is what the inside of the purse/bag looks like.  This is about a 7” width frame and is just a perfect size for me.  I loved it so much I made another cover to fit the same frame on the next blog post but now I want to show you the zipper pulls I made for this bag.  I used beading wire and attached a charm and a bead to the zipper.  Makes it so much easier to open the zippers and adds a finishing touch to the purse/bag.

 

On the next post I will show you the next bag I made for this frame.   I seem to be on a roll making new bags….too bad each one doesn’t come with it’s own cash to store in it!

Until Later,
Lynn

From My Garden

A close up photo of one of the Hen and Chicks succulents in my flower bed.

Lynn

You Are My Sunshine Part 3

All quilted and it was a fun piece to quilt.  I marked very little and used several colors of thread to stitch the designs.  Just click on the photos below to see more of the detail of my quilting.  As you will see I used a lot of feather designs or designs similar to feathers because I just love stitching that type of design.  I also changed thread colors a lot.

 

 

 

I added a folded piece of the bright yellow fabric as a small flange just inside the binding.   I like the yellow thread on the red outside border as the design really shows up well with that thread color too.

OK, did you find the mistake in my piecing?  Scroll to the top and look at the finished quilt and notice the four corners of the last red border.  I had planned for the stripe to go diagonally out from the center like the two top corners but how I got the bottom two durned around is beyond me.  What totally amazes me is not that I made the mistake but that I failed to see if for a couple of months.  ( Yes I have had this quilt done for a while but just getting the blog posts written now.  )  I will leave it but now when I look at the quilt I see these corners first.

Until Later,
Lynn

You Are My Sunshine Part 2

 

Auditioning the lattice fabric between the blocks then auditioning the border fabrics is how I made my decision.  I just kept trying the different combinations of fabrics until I found the ones I liked together with the blocks.

Auditioning Borders VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

All pieced and ready to quilt.  I do want you to try and find a piecing mistake I didn’t notice until I had the wall hanging all quilted, bound and hung.  Just look at the photo below and see if you can spot it.  It is very obvious once you see it but I really must have not looked too closely before I layered it to quilt.Next is the quilting and I will reveal the piecing mistake so come back to find out where it is if you didn't spot it.

Until later,
Lynn

You Are My Sunshine

This is a block I made in a class I took from Mickey Depre a few years ago at QuiltNebraska, the Nebraska State Quilt Guild's annual convention.  It is such a cheery block but I never quite knew what to do with it until now.

This year our quilt guild challenge gave me an idea to use this block as part of my challenge.  The challenge was to make a quilt that depicted a song title.  The song I chose was “You Are My Sunshine”.  It is a favorite song of mine as my father in law used to sing it to our daughters all the time so they also feel a connection to the song.I pulled some fabrics that blended with the block I'd but came up with another idea by this time so just started drawing blocks in my Electric Quilt computer program and proceeded to start foundation piecing the different sized sun blocks.  This is just the pieced part of the block as there will be 1/4 circles appliqued to the corners to make them look more like suns.

     

Next step was to add the quarter circle suns to the corners.  I used the Bernina circle attachment and it made it a breeze.  I backed the bright fabrics with a lightweight interfacing then after stitching the circle wrong sides together I turned and pressed them.  Perfectly smooth curves!  This way the edges were turned under and they could be appliqued down on the blocks.

The whole idea of the circle attachment is that the fabric is anchored in the center with a pin which guides the fabric in a circle as it is stitched.  Pretty simple idea but the circles can be adjusted to different sizes and more stitching can be added in the circles easily with this tool.
As you can see I pulled a bunch of red, orange and red threads from my thread stash and did a pretty stitch on each of the circles to add more interest.  I also used the threads to stitch down the blue blades of the foundation pieced sun rays with the built in stitches on my machine.  This is something I have wanted to do for a while and it really added texture and another layer of color to the blocks.

Appliqueing the Circles VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I used a glue stick to position the circles to the blocks and used more of the built in stitches on my machine to applique them.  What fun!  The circles were trimmed to their 1/4 circle after the applique was done.The blocks are done, now to figure out how to put them into a quilt.  Come back for the next installment to see.

Until Later,
Lynn