using what you have – Daily Fiber

Having recently finished a wall quilt, I found myself with various pieces of fabrics left over. Instead of stuffing them into a box and shoving the box under a bed, I decided to cut the fabric into strips for the purpose of sewing them into a project bag.

Back two years ago, I became interested in the Japanese art of stitching, aka sashiko and boro stitching. There was a pattern for a knot bag in this book by the Shibaguyz.

I did a post about it on Jan 5, 2022.

To make the bag, I would need fabrics for the base and lining, along with my strips of fabric. Fortunately, I had both. My daughter gave me some yardage of sturdy cotton flannel and my friend and co-worker Scott Perkins gave me a sample of raw silk.

Here is what I came up with using one quilt block made of a circle in a square. I then sewed strips of fabrics around it to cover all of the base and raw edges.

Fabric selection included bits of three men’s shirts. (The dark red and dark green strips, and the blue chambray behind the first circle.) All three of these fabrics had been worked into the Shell Lake Story quilt. So, I am using scraps of scraps!

My next step was to sew up a lining using the same pattern as the base.

A cellphone pocket in the lining.

Adding the hand stitching took a few weeks. I marked all the stitch lines with a chalk pencil. Using white Sashiko thread I worked a running stitch in straight lines on the strips and circles around the circles.

And here is the front and back of the bag after all the top stitching is in place.

Finally, the seams of bag and lining are sewn up, the bag inserted into the lining with right sides facing and the U-shaped top edges are sewn together. This last step took me two tries, btw, so seam ripping happened.

Turning the bag to the outside, the only remaining steps were to close the strap side seams and top-stitch the opening.

To use the bag, the long handle is threaded through the short handle.

A quick look at the lining before it is turned to the inside. I love the look of the silk, and it is pretty easy to handle. Fraying was the only thing that gave me some trouble. The next time I sew with silk, I will zigzag the seam allowances

Here is the completed knot bag, filled with a knitting project.

Front of bag as it hangs from a coat rack.

Back of bag.

This project was great fun (except for the seam ripping) and I would enjoy making more of these nifty bags. A larger size would be handy for bigger projects. And what a good way to use up scraps.

Last May I was engaged in the task of clearing out my mother’s sewing room. It was a sad but wondrous one. Almost forty years of accumulated objects, tools, machines and materials were stashed in every closet and corner of a tiny room. These included dozens of unfinished objects which were hidden in other rooms. In one closet I found draped over a hanger, rows of scrappy blocks – about sixty of them. She must have worked on this quilt over a period of years. It seemed very close to completion, so I brought it home with the idea of finishing it.

As I spread out all of the rows and loose blocks, I noticed that many blocks were not squared up. Some blocks were bigger than others. Some rows looked fine, others much shorter. (??.) Stymied by this discovery, I put the quilt away.

Now it is January and time for another Stay at Home Round Robin project. Led by Quilting Gail, this game is played by starting with a block, and then adding rows to it as clues (suggestions) are revealed weekly. I decided to get the scrappy blocks out and do something with them.

I disassembled some rows and organized the blocks by size and value. After a bit of pondering, I concluded that supporting fabrics for this quilt needed to be neutral solids. Purchasing a range of grays, I added a bright yellow batik print from my stash.

My plan is to create a value gradation starting from the center and working outward. The bright yellow will serve as a unifying sparkle for the design. Getting started, I chose four blocks that contained mostly pale colors.

To unify these four, I removed one corner from each, sewed on a triangle of yellow and assembled the blocks into a square.

My finished block will measure 15 inches. It is positioned on point to emphasize the many triangles that seem to catch the eye.

Now let’s hope the SAHHR team doesn’t throw me any CURVES!

To learn more about Stay at Home Round Robin 2023 and to play along, here is your link.

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/102293878/posts/4496810917

Tag: using what you have

Japanese Knot Bag

SAHRR 2023: Start with a Found Object

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