Friday, November 11, 2011

My tote challenge entry

I was invited to participate in an online tote challenge, so I decided to give it a try.  The challenge was to make a tote out of solids only fabrics, i.e., no prints.  The other rule was that the tote had to incorporate either patchwork, applique, or reverse-applique.  So below is my result.  The pattern is one that I adapted from a quilt design by Blackbird Designs from their "When The Cold Wind Blows" book.  Theirs was a bird pattern but I wanted mine to be a red-winged blackbird so added the red accent to his wing.  I quilted in on my longarm using a leaf motif.  My first tote bag!

7 comments:

  1. Gorgeous!!! Looks like that bag could make you some money in some elegant gift shops.

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  2. Really nice! The patchwork background and elaborate quilting hides the fact that you started with solids. I love the textures in your quilting and the red winged blackbird too. It's one of the few birds I can confidently recognize. Great first!

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  3. fantastic tote. Love your quilting and the dear little blackbird.

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  4. It looks amazing!! And your first tote? You really knocked it out of the ball park!

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  5. Wow, love this! I am new to sewing and quilting. What is this style of quilting called and how do you do it? Great work!

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  6. Jen, I did the quilting of this on my Gammill longarm quilting machine (Google and you can get the idea of what it is). Basically, the project remains stationary and the sewing machine head moves across the top to quilt it. All of the quilting in that bag was done freehand with me just guiding the machine to stitch it how I wanted it to look. It takes some practice, but after a while you get the hang of it and it's lots of fun!

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