The Stitch Gathering - ticket swap bag



Not long now until The Stitch Gathering.  I'm really looking forward to it this year. I did last year, too, but with quite a lot of nervousness in advance of the class I was teaching.  This year, I'm feeling more sure of myself especially since I have taught a few classes throughout the year.  Having written this, and expressed my relative lack of fear out loud, I'm now pretty concerned that I'm tempting fate.  I do hope not!

 

Anyhow, I'm sure it will be a wonderful day. Jo is a bit of a genius for putting together good things (and we'll just have to hope that, for the sake of everyone in my class, I'm not struck by lightning or a similar smugness-induced calamity between now and then). Last year we each received a fabric ticket which we embellished and handed in.....for Jo to turn into a stunning quilt which will be raffled for charity at this year's event.

 

I did wonder how that idea could be beaten, but I needn't have worried.  This year we have all been sent a ticket bag to embellish for a swap partner.  I can't reveal who my partner is as that would spoil half the fun, but I can show my finished bag.

 

After a lot of um-ing and ah-ing the flower applique idea came to me as I was heading off to sleep one night (do you find yourself mulling over stitchy problems then too?).  I much prefer bags with a bit of body and strength to them so I added a lining and picked out some fun lobsters for a wee pocket and key tab too. I hope my partner likes red.  I think she does!

 

I've added a few wee notes below on how I put the bag together.  I really love applique and it was one of the first things I taught myself a few years ago.  I'm not sure I do it the 'proper' way but what I do works for me so I thought I'd jot down a few pointers for the very simple way I decorated the bag in case anyone wants to give it a go but hasn't tried before.  It is fun so do try!

 

Applique notes::

 1. Firstly sketch your design, in this case I just did it straight onto the bag so that I didn't have to copy out the circles which were going to form the basis of my flower - but I could have traced the circles onto a piece of paper and then sketched my design on that.
2. If your design has a right and wrong way round (e.g. numbers and letters) then you'll need to reverse it, I usually hold my paper up to a window and trace the design onto the back of the paper.  In this instance it didn't matter, it just meant that the petals (which I drew free-hand and deliberately weren't symmetrical) would be mirror images of their originals.....but would still be exactly right to fit round the outer circle.  The four inner quarter circles were symmetrical so they didn't change when transferred onto bondaweb.
3. Next, you'll need to trace your design onto the rough side of some bondaweb (check the instructions it comes with if you're not sure which side!) - I use a pencil for this step.  Roughly cut round the outside of each piece of the design, a seam allowance of 1/4" or so works well. 
4. Iron each piece of the bondaweb design onto the wrong side of your chosen fabric(s) (again refer to instructions for exact timings etc).
5. Carefully cut out each design following the traced line on the bondaweb - now you'll have lots of pretty fabric pieces, hopefully in the right shapes!

6.  Now have some fun tearing off the backing sheet from the bondaweb! Place each piece of fabric, right side up, where you want it to lie on your bag (or wherever your design is going).  You can see that my pieces don't match my original design as I didn't reverse it - I have created a mirror image of my original.

 7. Iron in place.

 8. For extra security sew the design down by sewing round the outer edges with a short zig zag stitch - I found it simplest to unpick one side of the bag so that I had more room to manoeuvre the bag while stitching round the flower design.

9. And that's it.  Do say if you spot anything that doesn't make sense and otherwise I hope you have fun!

Working on this design, and playing around with the applique, made me realise how much fun machine embroidery would be - have you ever tried?  Any tips?