Criss cross bag

Another simple zipper bag, just because they are so much fun to make!

For this one, i tried another technique from the book, Quilting Modern,

to make the design, you cut the background fabric and sew in narrow strips of a contrasting fabric,

I used some red scraps, since I liked the look of them against the gray.  

this is what it looks like from the back:

to quilt it, I just sewed wavy stipes in red thread,

I was happy that I had a carved cinnabar bead for the zipper pull, I like how it echos the asian theme of some of the red fabrics,

I think I am formally addicted to making these bags now. 
What is your latest mania?

Zippered Pouch,

Another zippered pouch!

I have had a copy of this book for some time now:
It is the "textbook" that Sandy uses for her class "Learn to Quilt with focus on Improvisational techniques"

I fell in love with Sandy's quilt which she uses as a sample for the class, and I wanted to learn more about how to create such quilts,

So, because I am on this Handbag maging spree, I decided to make some sample blocks from the book and convert them to handbags. 
This is the first technique I tried,

I had a few scraps of beautiful turquoises left over from a quilt i did last year,

Remember me?

I combined them with a really cute black and white dot,
Making the block itself was pretty straightforward,   I cut a piece of freezer paper to about 12" x 15" and just made the block fit within that rectangle,

I quilted the sections with separate patterns.    The turquoise thread is quite heavy, a 10 wt, so I used a size 16 needle.  It worked well on straight lines, but when I switched to some free motion quilting, it didn't work so well, so I used a thinner ivory colored thread.

the bottom of the bag has boxed corners,

the inside,

its not lined, (which I have found out that some bag makers think is heinous, oh well) the side seams are just zig-zagged, and the zipper tape makes the facing over the top seam edge,

I decided to start adding some zipper pulls to my bags, 

For this one, i cut a wee strip of a thin leather that i had on hand and threaded it through the hole on the zipper pull.  To secure it, I just cut a bit of washi tape in half to make it about 1/8 " wide and wrapped it around the folded over leather to secure it.

I liked having the book to refer to.  I think i will definitely make more of this sort of block!