Christmas - in the bag

[merrileemakes]

My partner and I don't really do Christmas because of our combined childhood and family trauma. But I suspected she'd gotten me a little gift and I was struggling to think of something to gift her in return. Then a pre-Christmas chat at everykindofcraft prompted the idea to make her something.

Partner had mentioned that she wanted to do some cross stitching over the holidays, and I've always wanted to make a cross stitch project bag. So that's what I did!

Here's what I started with. I went with fabric designed by First Nations artists as Partner loves it. I've also been hoarding vinyl from sheet and quilt packaging for years for just this kind of project.

I found this tutorial on YouTube which was very helpful. For fabric sizes I just went with whatever my piece of vinyl was once I squared it up.



And I started with the zipper installation, because if there was any point I was going to give up in a huff it would be here.



But the zipper went in with no fuss. Time to cut the backing fabric.



As soon as I finished cutting I realised I'd fucking balls it. The backing fabric needed to be 1" bigger than the front to fold over and make the self-bound binding. But I had just cut it to be exactly the same size as the front zipper/vinyl panel. Fuck. And I didn't have enough of the same fabric to cut another backing piece.

So from here I could:
a) piece together some fabric to make a quilted backing fabric
b) find a different fabric to use for the back
c) find a different fabric to make some bias binding to bind the bag separately
d) give up in a huff.

I decided to go with option a, as I've also always wanted to try disappearing 9 patch quilt blocks. I cut 3 6" squares from 3 different fabrics, the front fabric, the back fabric and another coordinating one, and sewed them into a 3x3 grid.



Then you cut the 3x3 block into 4 squares, which gives you a block made up of a big square, a little square and 2 rectangles. Very cool!



You can rotate and recombine the blocks to make any number of designs. But because all my fabric was very similar I just organised the blocks into a pleasing layout and sewed them together. And after that little detour I now have a big enough backing fabric.



So then I spray basted the front and back fabrics together with some quilt batting and
come to my next big decision. Can I be arsed dragging my quilting sewing machine out of the bottom of my craft cupboard, where it lives under a billion other craft things? Not really. But I apparently was even less prepared to try and remember how to free motion quilt on my normal sewing machine, and I probably needed to get bits off my quitting machine anyway, so I unburied it.

I went with a random pebble style quitting to mirror all the dots in the artwork.



Then it was just folding over the backing fabric like in my previous quitting project to make the binding. And it's done!

Partner's cross stitch project before.



Partner's cross stitch project after.



I gifted it to her like this. I didn't even realise how well the project bag coordinated with the little notions pouch she already had. She was very chuffed with the gift. As I was with mine.


(Some merch from the company that do Honest Goverment Ads, which is peak #auspol satire. And another mug to add to my 'don't use while working from home' collection)

And I just realised I never got a photo of how the back turned out. Partner actually liked the quilted effect, so yay for stuffing it up I guess.



I hope everyone had a reasonable festive season and you've been able to do things that are fulfilling and relaxing.

Comments

[gs_silva]

That looks really nice! I love seeing the process from disaster to creative magic. And that mug is awesome.

[saintofcrowns]

This is such a delightful gift for your partner.

[thatjustwontbreak]

Beautiful work! Also I love the mug.