Sunday, March 04, 2007

Circle Applique Bag

First, a Very Very Happy 13th Birthday to dear Caroline! Her birthday present was inspired by my fabric stash, this photograph from a Japanese craft book, the colors of an upcoming Spring and by that youthful exuberance and energy that surrounds a very special 13 year old.

I started by sifting through my fabric scraps and used a 2" circle stencil to choose the placement of my circles on the fabric patterns. I marked the back side of the fabric with a dark marking pencil and then cut scraps of applique paper to iron on top of my marking. As the applique paper is opaque, I was still able to see my markings. You could certainly iron the paper on first, but I wanted to be picky about my circle placement and wanted to use as little applique paper as possible. After cutting the circles out, I touched up the edges with fray check to avoid fraying.

I then planned the layout of my circles anchoring the corners with darker colors and distributing my colors and duplicate patterns without appearing too contrived. I took a quick snapshot of this layout as I hadn't yet planned my bag design.

After designing the bag and cutting out the interior and exterior pieces, I peeled the backing off of the circles and ironed them onto the front bag piece. After that, I machine stitched each circle about 1/4" from the edges for added durability. I then assembled my bag which I designed as a cross shoulder tote. The straps tie at the top to allow for shortening and lengthening.





































1 comment:

robin said...

Ooh, ooh, that is so scrumptious. And what a terrfic way to use up those little scraps of favorites! Really great looking.