Off to the Farmers Market

I picked up a new book while I was at Piece by Peace Quilts in Fort St. John last month (last month already?) by Terri Degenkolb called Reminiscing: a whimsicals collection. Actually, I bought it for the Rusted Moons pattern, but it has lots of other neat patterns in it, including the Tag Along Tote. It just caught my eye. Well, really, it doesn’t take much for a bag pattern to catch my eye these days, but I decided to actually make one for my best friend whose birthday was last week. I had just bought the Summer 2014 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects and no bags, but lots of intriguing patterns and designs. Terri had a flower as the centrepiece on the bag, but Primitive Quilts had Henrietta Little (by Deb Day) outlined as a needlepunch project, and my friend loves her chickens. I don’t do rugs, but it was easy to turn her drawing into an applique project. 

Chicken + Bag = birthday present. Terri’s pattern is so simple that I figured I’d have it done in a day! Well, except for the chicken applique. That always takes a bit of time. But her pattern was so simple, it threw me for a loop. I was expecting the straps to be much more complicated than they were and so couldn’t understand her instructions. Looking back on them now that I’ve finished, I see exactly how I messed up. Anyway, a little bit of unsewing and a little bit of improvising, and the bag was finished and delivered.

Because there were no pockets inside, I made up a matching Cake Clutch, which did take me less than a day to make because I’ve been making so many of them lately. I added a fob inside the bag and a d-ring outside the clutch so it could be attached to the bag. Oh yeah – the lining is dotted with chicken fabric! Just the thing for shopping at the local Farmers Market.

Until next time,