A birthday Buttercup bag

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. When she saw one of the Buttercup bags I made, she asked if I would make one for her for her birthday. I already had ordered some Jessica Jones fabric for her when she asked me to take her to the fabric store and help her pick some out, so I had to let the birthday cat out of the bag. I thought she would pick the neutral stacks (she's a neutral clothing/muted tones kind of girl). Little did I know she would pick the blue leaflet fabric that I made my first Buttercup bag out of.

She likes to carry a lot of things in her bags, or at least have enough room to carry several items if she chooses to (she's not unknown to carry a book or two around with her), so I enlarged the pattern two inches on all sides. This time, I made the inside pockets match the outer fabric so you get a little bit of color when you peek inside.


I'm really liking how quickly these bags are coming together now that I've made a few.


Marnie's birthday dinner is tonight and the bag is all wrapped up and ready to go. I hope she likes it.

Playing Catch-up

After my back went out last week, I didn't get the chance to do very much sewing. But, I certainly made up for it the other night. I've been nursing this terrible sinus headache/earache/toothache over the last few days and was so sick of it that I just needed to get something done to get my mind off how much my head was killing me.

So, I made block #4 in the Jelly Roll Quilt Along (ignore the lack of pressing).

Click the photo to see the full image on Flickr, along with the other participants' blocks.



And I made the Buttercup bag for Terre. I was pleased that it only took me two hours instead of four like the last time.


She ordered the floral print from Joann's and had it sent to me since she lives about five hours away. It's a really soft cotton. I interfaced the lining pieces with the curtain that I've used on all the other bags I've made to give it extra strength. Because the fabric was thinner quilting cotton, I was able to add the decorative piece where the buttons are sewn.


After finishing those two things, I got nearly 1/3 of the way through quilting my Life Is What You Make It quilt. I didn't want to do straight line quilting so I played around with some of the decorative stitches on my machine and decided on a wavy line that runs the width of the quilt. I think it's going to look great once it's bound, washed, and scrunched up. Photos to come when it's finished.

I also went to my first quilt guild meeting on Thursday. It was really fun to meet some of the girls whose blogs I frequent and admire their talent. Some day I'll be as good as them.

More on Life Is What You Make It Quilt

I spent the evening last night piecing the back of my Life Is What You Make It quilt. After that was finished, I cut the batting and basted the quilt. I shouldn't have cut my nails yesterday morning...it made closing those pins extra hard (not to mention ouchy). I haven't decided how I'm going to quilt it yet, but I hope to get some of it done before the quilt guild meeting on Thursday night so I have something to show off.

Instead of separating the two backing fabrics with the row of charms 2/3 of the way up, I opted to just split it half since the fabric width was pretty much perfect. (If I can find a way to make things easier, I will.) And even though the fabrics are different colors, I think the white paisley print is busy enough to balance out the green dots.





I also cut out another Buttercup bag for my good friend, Terre. Don't you love the fabric she picked out?


Joann's has been having some great fabric sales this month. I went the other day and picked up a few more half-yard cuts for a new quilt that I haven't planned out yet (surprise, surprise).


I also got the backing fabric for my Swirling Stars quilt. This pattern will look great with some free motion quilting (if I get the hang of it before I get around to finishing that quilt).

Buttercup Bag Redo

More of Jessica Jones' fabric was on sale at JCarolineCreative so I snatched some up (like this and this).

It came in the mail on Saturday so I decided to make another buttercup bag last night after the kids were in bed.


I enlarged the pattern two inches on all sides. I also re-purposed a cotton canvas curtain for the lining. (The curtains were a nasty puce green that I tried dyeing blue for my new bedroom color scheme. That didn't work and they turned out gray. But, they were the perfect weight for the lining and I was happy to put some of that fabric to good use.) Like the previous bag, I made two pockets for the inside because one just isn't enough.


I also doubled the width of the strap to make it more substantial, but afterwards realized that a tad thinner would have been better for sitting on my shoulder. This time I sewed the strap between the inner and outer layers halfway through the process rather than just attaching it to the inside as the last step. I inserted the ends upside down the first time and had to unpick and resew them. Kind of a pain because I hate unpicking. But it worked out just fine.


On the last bag I made, I didn't top stitch around the top edge of the purse and I wish I had. So this time, instead of just doing a plain stitch, I used my machine's asterisk-looking stitch (one of my favorites) to give it a little more personality.


I'm really pleased with how this one turned out. I thought I did a pretty good job on the first one, but now that I've made another, I can see more of the flaws in the first one. But, they say practice makes perfect...and I have lots more canvas to put to use.

Buttercup bag

Yesterday, I spent a few hours working on the Buttercup bag. I thought it would take me a couple nights to get it done, but (surprisingly), I got it all cut, sewn, and put together last night.


I bought a bag from Jessica Jones' etsy shop (now closed) last year because I love her fabric. I didn't realize that I could make one for myself for a lot cheaper. The one I bought was a tad on the small side, but still super cute.


I enlarged the pattern pieces a bit and added orange lining and orange buttons. I think it turned out pretty well for my first attempt making a bag of any kind. I have enough fabric to try another one, but I think next time I'll use a heavier fabric for the lining and sew the strap before I sew the inner and outer pieces together.


I decided to omit the decorative fabric piece to go under the buttons as well as add an extra pocket for the inside.

You can see some altered versions of the bag made by the designer, Rae, here.