Avant Garden On the Go Bag

At this summer's Quilt Knit Stitch show, I was introduced to Patterns by Annie, a very cool pattern company and the makers of Soft and Stable, which is a kind of foam/batting hybrid to give structure to bags. I ended up buying the Patterns, Soft and Stable, and Hardware for two different patterns. This is the smaller of the two I bought patterns for, the On the Go bag.

I love having a smaller purse when I travel (my everyday purse is huge) so my goal was to finish this before I went on vacation. Mission accomplished! I hadn't done much purse sewing in a while, but my good friend Kim is an amazing bag maker and teacher and she said she'd help, so I figured I could figure it out with her help!

I used some of my birthday fabric from one of my favorite designers--Avant Garden by Momo and the purple linen Mochi dot binding is also by Momo. After cutting out the main pieces of the bag, you sandwich the Soft and Stable between the front fabric and the back fabric and then quilt that, then you cut more pieces from that. Very cool way to get your quilted fabric in!

The front flap has a zippered pocket with slots inside, as well as a vinyl pocket.

Slots inside the front flap zipper

A slip pocket on the back

Another vinyl pocket when you lift the flap up

Inside of flap

Credit card slots inside main body of bag (inside zipper)

Overall this pattern was really well written and although some of the pieces were difficult to bind because of going through so many thicknesses of Soft and Stable + fabric, I am pretty pleased with my results!

I'm excited to work on the next pattern and kit I have from Patterns by Annie--Mini Organizer. I'm going to try to adjust it to add an additional zipper across the top of the bag, I like my bags securely closed!

Sex-ay Wallets and other swaps

Well I finished the garden scarf and the one skein scarf for the following month. I still haven't completed the crochet hook roll (well I finished it, but it is messed up, I need to re-do it) or the clutch. I've been doing a lot of sewing lately. I made these wallets out of paperback novel covers, I found a tutorial on Craftster and modified it slightly.




Also I made a purse and goodies for a purse swap on craftster. I had quite a bit of trouble with it, I hadn't sewed from a pattern in years, and now I remember that I hate Butterick patterns. It's lined in a green/brown silky fabric and closes with a magnetic snap. I also did a crocheted journal cover with room to hold a pen on the spine area with vintage ribbon to hold it closed, a crocheted roller skate key chain that I made up the pattern for (my partner liked roller derby), and a crocheted bookmark.