I was approached about attending a Retreat of a small local Guild. I was asked if I would be interested in teaching a quilting class of some kind AND doing a trunk show. No problem says I. What would you like me to teach?
The Theme of the retreat is something like Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose (that isn't exactly it, but it's pretty close) so I listed off the things that I thought I could teach. And we decided on a bag. A bag big enough to carry stuff to and from a class, and the pockets on the bag should be scrappy, so you were able to use up old fabric without having to buy more... And I thought of the Chop Suey Block - which I have also seen called Hidden Pinwheels after the secondary pattern. I have even taught that class before, so all I had to do was design the bag.
So I made a bag. It was HUGE!! REALLY huge!!!
So I redesigned the bag for the class. I added the chop suey blocks for the pockets, made the bag smaller and added pockets and loops on the inside. Below is the second bag.
Below is me, holding the second bag, which is a much more reasonable size. I will admit that before I made this, I used some 2$ material and made the bag without the chop suey pockets and with out the interior embellishments as well. Later, I disassembled that bag, and reclaimed the straps which were good quality cotton. The rest of the bag was polyester and I threw it away! :-)
And I delivered the bag to the Guild, wrote a proposal with my costs and bingo, I was in.
I also decided to try a still smaller bag. One you could carry your book and sunscreen to the beach with! I bought some absolutely adorable chocolate fabric...
I took it to show my Mom and Dad and my Mom really liked it. She took it downstairs to show the ladies in the Seniors building they live in. Within 15 minutes I had 7 orders for bags in various colours!!!
I have since made 38 bags. And I have four more on order. These are not part of our quilting company and there are none on the website, because I can't get caught up with the orders!!!!
Here are more bags, in no particular order! There were a few more than the pictures below, but you get the idea!
