Carried away

I’m off to Festival of Quilts for a few days and this year I’ve booked a couple workshops to do in addition to all the shopping and looking in awe at the quilts. Reading through the supply list last weekend, I realised that I have to take a cutting mat and rulers – cue some searching at home for a suitable bag. Finding nothing either big enough for the mat or strong enough to stop the ruler corners poking through, it was time to time to get the sewing machine out and make one.

The pattern was made up as I went along and what started out as being a simple tote bag ended up having a lining, a button fastening, an outer zip pocket and an inner patch pocket. Everything was from stash. The main fabric was two small fents of furnishing fabric from Standfast and Barrack (50p each) interlined with a remnant of curtaining bump (also from S&B, £1). The outer zip was from an Abakhan bargain bag (£1.80 for the whole bag), the lining was left over from making the Mommy Poppins bag and the button was from my button tin.

I wanted this bag to be able to be carried either by hand or on the shoulder, but given the size of the bag and shortness of the carrier (me!) the hand straps couldn’t be very long otherwise the bag would drag along the floor. A bit of clever folding resulted in an integrated short handle between the shoulder strap that, thanks to some fortuitous cutting and pattern matching, is almost invisible.

If you’re going to Festival of Quilts on Thursday or Friday and spot this bag, do stop me and say hello.