Saturday 29 December 2007

Bags and more Bags



I started patchwork & quilting after seeing things made by my friends & neighbours when I was working as an English teacher in Yuza-machi, Japan in 1992. Making patchwork bags was amazingly popular there. I started my patchworking life with a 6ft square bed quilt but became more interested in bags & other small items later on. Hence 21 Terrific Patchwork Bags and 21 Sensational Patchwork Bags. As soon as I finish one bag book, I've already got more sketches for other bag ideas I want to try out, so I'm working on "Fabulous Fat Quarter Bags" at the moment - bags made from fat quarters and fat quarter bundles, which are just too irresistible!
As if that wasn't enough,I signed up for the 2008 monthly bag challenge at BQL, aka the British Quilters' List, a fun, friendly and active Yahoo! group of fellow p & q enthusiasts. One of the ideas behind the challenge, which sees a different bag pattern to make for each month, is to get people off using so many plastic bags for supermarket shopping. If you are a BQL member, you can take part. On completing each month's bag, you get a password to access the pattern for next months, and you need to post a photo of the bag you made to get the next month's pattern. Looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. If the first month's bag is any guide, patchworking the bag outer will be up to you. I am planning to use up a lot of the faux patchwork fabrics I have in my stash.

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