Bags & wallhanging - also from Australia

June Fitzgerald from Brisbane, Australia, sent me some pics of recent projects. The wallhanging above uses patterns from both my sashiko books and June paired them with a lovely acorn motif fabric she bought on a trip to Japan. As I always say, fabric makes the best souvenir!

She made a Swag Bag from 'Fabulous Fat Quarter Bags' for her niece (lucky niece) and once again, the black fabric really makes it look classy. Prints with black backgrounds are always good for coordinated projects like this.


The Rice Sack bag from '21 Terrific Patchwork Bags' is also given a sophisticated look with her fabric choices. She's used the original block selection from the book, but it looks so different with stronger contrasts.


June also tipped me off re Lisa Walton's hand dyed sashiko threads - www.dyedheaven.com June wrote 'One of her new yarns which I purchased is ideal for autumn maple leaves. The variegated colours of the yarns make them very exciting. It is a shame they are not on the website. Her fabrics are of the highest quality and beautiful to work with.' Looks like Lisa has some gorgeous hand dyes there - it will be interesting to see what June uses them for next! Thanks very much for the photos!

Rice Sack Bag - revisited

The original alternative version of the Rice Sack Bag from "21 Terrific Patchwork Bags", made with African wax batiks, is looking very much the worse for wear - after nearly 8 years! - and it was about time I made a replacement. It is still my favourite bag design for every day. Some new tsumugi cottons arrived just after Christmas, with a good selection of blue stripes. These 141/2in wide fabrics always look good with colourful Japanese patchwork cottons and Kona Bay Japanese prints. I had a heap of offcuts from trimming 2 1/2in strips from the "99 Treasures" charm pack leftovers, all irregular widths but as the Rice Sack Bag panel is foundation pieced onto calico, odd widths can easily be used up. The effect reminds me of sakiori rag weave and I added a line of sashiko-style big stitch down the wider strips, stitching by eye for a rustic effect.

I wanted to add an outer zip pocket into the side panel (somewhere to store receipts) so I needed two matching zips. I found a matching 30cm and 20cm metal zip, so that meant the patchwork strip would need to be 8in finished, 2in wider than normal. I positioned the pocket opening just before the bag begins to slope towards the top. The stitch and flipped foundation strip included a wider strip where I wanted to cut and insert the zip. Although it is tempting to not line the pocket, allowing the main bag lining to work as a pocket instead, I could see things could get lost between the bag and the lining, so I made a proper pocket inside. This has a lining folded between the main lining and the bag, sewn down on either side of the patchwork strip.


I also wanted a ticket pocket again. A few years ago I had a Rice Sack Bag (now retired) made from the table runner panel from "The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook" with a ticket pocket, just the right size for a railway or tube ticket. This was originally the idea of a quilter who came to one of my Rice Sack Bag workshops, to use up the little pieces of fabric left over from the ends of the side panels (side panels in this case meaning the strips on either side of the patchwork one!) I missed having that useful pocket, so I added one to this bag, accenting the top with another print scrap strip.


The strap for the original bag was tubular, which tended to loose shape after a while, made from a 5in wide strip. I used to cut one strap and the two side panels from one 14 1/2in tsumugi width. Because the patchwork strip is wider, I could cut narrower side panels and a wider strap strip, to make a strap four layers thick (by folding the strap strip in half and in half again lengthwise, with the raw edges sandwiched in the middle - a method I use a lot in more recent books). With several rows of machine topstitching, this makes a nice firm strap. It is 2in wide.

However, it also posed a problem. The Rice Sack Bag strap is usually sewn to the outside of the finished bag, with the raw ends turned under = eight layers of strap fabric with this style strap plus the bag outer (patchwork strip here, so 2 x two layers) and the lining (another two layers). I could see even the Bernina turning up its toes at fourteen layers of fabric. So I tried slotting the ends of the strap into the top of the bag - a neat design finish.


This is easy to do except when the bag tapers to a point, as the Rice Sack Bag does. I ended up clipping the lining and outer fabric on either side of the strap, then machining across several times on the inside (this isn't seen when the bag is finished!) I might add a semamori stab-stitched charm on the outside, on each end of the strap, stitched through all the layers.

Victorian Circle Bag in raspberry colourway

More bags - click this link to see Elly's version of my Victorian Circle Bag from "21 Terrific Patchwork Bags" (and thank you to Tilde, who sent me the link).

The Envelope Bag - revisited - and Denman Kannon update.

Sometimes I remake my favourite bags from my bag books. This version of the envelope bag was finished as a Christmas present -

The original is in "21 Terrific Patchwork Bags", my first bag book. There are minor differences - I didn't have the same Japanese gold print fabrics, so I used some that were as similar as possible, and the cord in plain (the original was a beige & eau de nil green spiral braid). The new version has a lovely ornate gold tone button. I wish I'd had those for the original!


Work is progressing on the Denman Kannon. I have completed the leaves and the fish outlines, the face of the goddess and started on the halo. I used a single strand fine sashiko thread and stem stitch for the face, as running stitch would look to bitty at this scale IMHO.

I am using the various shades of cream, antique white and brilliant white produced by different sashiko thread manufacturers, to create a glow effect for the halo, starting with Olympus mediume white (from the 40metre skein range) on the outside and working inwards to Olympus cream 100 metres. I ought to check the 40 metre cream too. In between, there are threads from Kinkame and Yokota. The colour difference doesn't really show in flash photos, so I'll try to take a better photo once I've completed the sections between the halo rings. It is my "travelling" project at the moment.

Super Strips Quilt Top at Gresford - second time round

I promised I would run this workshop again at Gresford in the autumn, so here it is once again. We had a much sunnier, if colder, day than in the summer, but everyone seemed to have just as much fun despite the freezing temperatures outside. This quilt top centre goes together very quickly, so I'm hoping to see some finished tops soon. Margaret loaned me her finished top from the summer workshop, so I displayed it alongside the main workshop sample and my new jelly roll version (which uses retro feedsack prints from the Katie Jump Rope range by Denise Schmidt).

The original workshop sample hanging up -



In bright colours -

In black and white -


Liberty prints -
Rich autumnal colours -
"Portobello Road" Jelly Roll from Moda fabrics - (the blue/green strips are going to be used for the outer borders)

Tiny prints - the same fabric can do twice the work, appearing in both strip sets -

More tiny prints -

and with it's outer triangle panels (Dot sewed extra strips in advance).


I got to see a few recent projects made from my designs. Dot brought her version of "99 Treasures" (on my patterns page) with a yellow shaded print used for the background squares. I think the same shaded fabric would make great borders.

Pat had made a new version of the Tough Tote (from "21 Terrific Patchwork Bags"), using chenille for the outer fabric panels. I love the yellow piping accent.

More Malvern Bags

Here are two more great bags seen at Quilts UK, Malvern (I'd left these photos on the laptop earlier). First one is a version of the satchel from "21 Terrific Patchwork Bags" -

and the second uses some of my "99 Treasures" 4in squares as centres for Japanese folded patchwork squares (those 4in squares end up being used for all sorts of things is seems, not only the 299 Treasures" quilt!)


I love seeing bags in use at shows. Maybe there will be some more to view at the National Quilt Championships at Sandown Park next week?

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.