Recent Bag Making

 I love bag making, but the plain truth is that I don't really need anymore bags.  But earlier this spring I was at an elementary school science event with a friend where we were helping kids make shrinky-dink cells (these two are photoreceptors and microglia), and it occurred to me that they would make good zipper pulls!  So with that measliest of justification, I decided I'd make little pouches for all my friends in 4 Common Corners for our upcoming retreat and make custom shrinky dink zipper pulls for each one with our logo and everyone's name.

They're just simple lined pouches, good for random supplies or notions, and they're all different sizes.  My other goal was to use up all the cute sample blocks or test things I had lying around in the studio to make something fun and useable!

Microglia!

Photoreceptor!

I loved this turquoise codouroy.  It was fun to pick out corresponding scraps of bright colors for the insides.

These were leftover sample prints from two different printmaking exercises,  the one in the back was a block print carved in meat-packing foam, and the front one was a silk screen made from fusible vinyl.  Both from many years ago, I'm so glad to have used them for something fun!

These three are made from quilt blocks where I was trying trapunto and bobbin quilting with the Ricky Tims Razzle Dazzle.  I never knew what to do with them, so fun pouches it is!

This one is another more recent printmaking sample.  I have no idea where that blotchy yellow sample came from, but I printed a star from the carved block I used for the Kyrie Eleison quilt recently.  The star is cut in half directly along the zipper, so the other half of the star is on the other side.

For a very brief time I had (? or borrowed?) a needle felting machine and I remember making this big piece of needle felted fabric covered with bright pink, gold, and brown silks and other weird fabrics.  I was just trying to see what would felt and what wouldn't and it made the most random (but colorful) and textural piece of fabric.  Once again, thrilled to use it for something!!

And here they are all together!  It satisfied my bag making itch and used up some of the bits and bobs that have been in the studio for years.

In an unrelated spate of bagmaking, my sister and I also recently made these three project tote bags while at my mom's for my Grandma's 98th birthday.  Becky wanted a new project bag, and I can never turn down the opportunity to make bags, so I joined in.  

We decided to use some of my mom's early test quilts/samples for the project and wound up making one for each of us.  The quilts were mostly things my mom made in early workshops or technique tests rather than "good" art quilts, but she had sentimental attachments to them and didn't want to throw them away, so bag making was a fun way to transform them.  We wound up with enough bound edge to make the handles, and enough body of the quilts to make one external side and the large external pocket.  

I think they turned out way more fun than if we'd just used stash fabric.  The quilted outer layer adds some body and a bunch of fun color and pattern to them.

I thought it was such a fun thing to do with the old quilts I've set aside some of mine for when the bag making bug hits again.  

Unfortunately, we managed to bend the shaft of my mom's main sewing machine while sewing over a bunch of quilted layers which permanently ruined it.  I felt really terrible, but mom was super sweet about it. Becky and I offered to help chip in for a new one, but right now she's sewing on one of my dad's rescued singers, and seems to like that ok.  It was a sad end to a fun project though.

Here's hoping you have some fun bag-making (without sewing machine damage) in your future!