The Cafe' Bag

My second sewing project, ever! I have wanted a purse like this so I decided to put the scallop square die to work again (my first project ever was the rag purse). This is one of those long handle purses that you can wear across your chest for hands-free shopping.

I went from a pattern in a quilt magazine, but it called for strips of fabric, not squares. And it called for muslin, but I used iron on fleece. And it had a cord strap, I used fabric. It didn't have a flap, I added one. Of course it didn't call for a Flower Folds flower either, LOL. So all in all, I guess you could say I came up with my own design. My purse is much larger than the pattern purse, too.

I'm calling this the Cafe Bag because this is a bag I would take into Starbucks to hang out with friends (like I get to do that all the time, HA!). But let's just pretend.

I had most of the scallop squares cut last night. It took about 5 minutes, LOL. Jeff asked, "How many does that cut at one time, anyways?!" I joyfully replied, "EIGHT"! I said, "I could never be a REAL quilter, but I can handle it with the Big Shot." He was impressed.

Then I called my mom today to run my ideas by her. I got to the shop at 10am to pick up fusible fleece and fabric for the lining and handle. Here's the lining. Isn't it pretty?


And here's the handle. The handle came from the same fabric as the lining. I had to get it just perfect to have those flowers showing. I did a pretty good job.


I actually sewed this flower together earlier in the day just for fun. This is made with the Flower Fold XL Bigz Die, a Stampin' Up! exclusive. But as the bag was coming together, I thought it would be the perfect embellishment. Now that I'm looking at it, it needs to go down into the lower block I think. Ah, I'll do that on the next bag.

The handles are actually not sewn in yet. I need some help from my mom. I just can't get my machine to go through all the layers. I hope she can do it on her machine with no problems.

This is definitely a prototype. I will change a few things on the next one. I especially want to figure out some decorative stitching. And although I love the flap, the original pattern did not call for one. That would be a LOT easier for all us new sewers! But overall, I really like how this turned out. I spent a whole day and night on it, yikes!

Let me know if you would like a tutorial on this once I get the kinks worked out! ;)