Free By Annie Bag Pattern

Bag patterns from By Annie are great.  My last post highlighted the Clam Up Bags I made this year.  I thought I'd let you know that By Annie has some free bag patterns on her site.  I made the Easy Does It pattern and it turned out very nice.

This is an easy bag pattern and a good one to try before you advance to other  ones.  This bag finishes at 6" H x 9"W x 4 1/2" D .  The handles at the side are a great addition and easy to attach.

This bad doesn't take much fabric.  I used  a couple fabrics from the Island Batik Honeycomb collection by Kathy Engle.  Simple quilting of your choice can be added.

Give it a try!

It's In The Bag - Oct Island Batik Challenge

 

The October Island Batik Ambassador Challenge is called It's In The Bag.  By Annie is one of the Island Batik Ambassador Sponsors and this is her month to shine.  Each Ambassador was able to select a bag pattern to make and By Annie provided the pattern and all the hardware and things needed for the pattern.  Island Batik also allowed us to select which fabrics we wanted to make the bag with.  What a great challenge!

This year I picked the Clam Up pattern and three fabrics from the Island Batik Baroque collection.

The Clam Up pattern has directions to make zippered pouches in 5 different sizes.  They all nest inside each other.  I thought these would be great to make as gifts.

Of all the By Annie patterns I've made over the years, this one is the easiest.  You don't even have to quilt the fabric for the pouches which is a time saver.   Along with the pattern By Annie sent a package of zippers by the yard and a package of Soft and Stable to make the pouches.

One reason I decided on Baroque for the fabrics was because I had some other fabrics from the collection left over from another quilt and then I could make each bag a different color.

The pattern comes with little labels that you put on the pieces as you cut them to keep everything in good order. (my photos show more than 5 sets as I was trying to make as many as I could)

The bag pattern itself was just one piece.

Here are bag patterns for 4 (I don't know where the 5th one got to!) along with the cut zippers and inner gusset pieces.  Two lines are sewn in the middle where the sides will turn up.  That's all the quilting that was done.

Zippers were easy to sew on using Annie's zippers which are a bit wider.  The Zippers by the Yard also has enough pulls that you can have double pulls on each pouch.

The next thing to sew was the inner gussets.  It was hard to get a close photo, but these make little sides to the inside of the pouch so things can't fall out of the pouch.  They were easy to attach.

Here are the five bags from the pattern.

It is so neat that these all nest inside each other.

Here you can see the coordinating fabrics on the insides and also the gussets on the sides.

So colorful!  These would be pretty in just about any fabrics.

I was able to make 8 bags with the package of Zippers by the Yard which you can purchase at ByAnnie in 32 different colors!

Many thanks to Island Batik, By Annie for supplying products to use for this post thru the Island Batik Ambassador program.

Check out what bags the other Ambassadors have been making:

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs Megan Best ~ Bestquilter Pamela Boatright ~ Pamelaquilts Elizabeth DeCroos ~ Epida Studio Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter

Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch By Stitch Custom Quilting Reed Johnson ~ Blue Bear Quilts Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs . Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood Denise Looney ~ For The Love Of Geese Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack Made Mine Anorina Morris – sameliasmum.com Lisa Pickering ~ Lisa’s Quilting Passion Claudia Porter ~ Create with Claudia Gail Renna ~ Quilt Haven Threads Brianna Roberts ~ Sew Cute And Quirky Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail Andi Stanfield ~ True Blue Quilts Sandra Starley ~ Textile Time Travels Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations Suzy Webster ~ Websterquilt

Pine Needles Quilt at Auction

My quilt Pine Needles  is in the online auction at Camp Mack. in Milford IN.  The funds from the auction go to support the camp.

Pine Needles is published in the 2022 July/August McCall's Quilting Magazine.  The quilt is 36" x 36" and is made with beautiful Island Batik fabrics

Camp Mack is having an online auction that runs thru Fri. Oct 7 at 7 pm.  If you'd like to have this quilt for your very own, you can bid on it by clicking  here .  Once you click on the site you can scroll down and click on the auction button.  The site will explain how to sign up to bid.

Here's your chance to own a Kauffman Designs original!

October Doll House Block

 It's October - time for our first Doll House block in Amy Bradley's Doll House quilt.  This month it is the Front Door.  A perfect start of the series.  Come in the front door this month and the following months we'll work on individual rooms.

If you just received your pattern, be sure and read over the instructions.  You can still purchase the pattern - either a paper copy or digital copy here.

Begin by tracing over the pattern pieces for the Front Door on WonderUnder and fuse them to  the fabrics you have selected.

    *Hint - if you are selecting fabrics similar to the pattern it is helpful if you have already decided what yellow you will be using for the sashings.  Then when you look for a yellow for the front door backings you can lay both yellows side by side to see if they look good together.

    *Some pattern pieces have lines on them that you need to mark on the fabric for later top stitching.  In this block it is the light fixtures, mail box, door and  plants.  After you have the fabrics fused, you can lay them on top of the pattern sheet and mark the lines on the fabric.

Lay your top and pocket patterns over the placement sheet and layer them in numerical order on top  of the backing fabrics (take the paper backing off first).   Notice that the fabric backings are a bit larger so that they can be squared up later.  Then fuse.

    *Hint - It's helpful to have some sort of light box under the pattern placement sheet.  I have a small acrylic sewing table around my sewing machine.  I'm able to put a small light under the side of the machine that works very well.

Here is just an example of how well the pattern shows up thru the fabrics.

Here are my background and pocket pieces all fused.

I hadn't marked the lines on top of the pieces of the bushes and the lights yet- you can still do it after everything is fused down.

If you read your instructions you will see that Amy suggests having a double layer of fabrics on your white pieces.  She has allowed extra fabric to to this.

This is why- see how you can see the red under the white fabric where it overlaps?  Having a double layer of white will eliminate this.  See- you can learn from my mistakes!

        *Hint - You can learn from another one of my mistakes.  When pressing my blocks with steam I quickly learned that my red fabric bled!  Yikes!  I had the blocks all ready for doing the button hole stitching.  I took my blocks and hand washed them with a color catcher and it picked up all the red with no running.  Whew!

Here is a close up of the buttonhole stitching.  After stitching I don't think you notice the slight red under the white fabric.

    *Hint -  Amy suggests putting a tear a way backing under the blocks when you do the buttonhole stitching.  I usually don't need this and didn't use it.  You can notice the slight puckers at the top because I didn't use it.  Amy knows best!

You can also notice the top stitching on the plant is finished, but not on the door yet.

Since this is the first block, I couldn't wait to see how the pocket would be attached.  The instructions are very good and it's easy to make the corner tucks.

I added the two side sashes.  First block done!

I hope you have fun starting with this first block of the Doll House quilt.  Next month we will be working on the Kitchen block.

I would love it if you would post photos of your blocks in the comments as we go along.  See you next month!