Before my daughter switched cities, she lived a few blocks away from one of my students and when I went to visit, I could visit both of them. During one visit, Patti gave me a big piece of dyed ruffle fabric. It's gorgeous and there's enough still left for something for myself.
The ruffles are attached to a net background too flimsy for a bag so I layered the fabric over a multi colored print, batting, and backing and zigzag stitched between each ruffle - which sounds so much easier than it was. Holding back the ruffles, inch by inch, to get between them was tedious BUT... we must struggle for beauty - LOL - it's perfect.
JoAnna is an art teacher. She's exuberant, colorful, outgoing and talks with her hands. I bought the burnout image above of the woman dancing and the one below of a sunflower on one of our shopping days. Both work fabulously. Sunflowers are one of her favourite flowers.
These burnout designs have been sitting in stash for a long time. The woman who made them was selling the most gorgeous, lush, beautifully colored quilts at high end prices. They were uniquely quilted by another friend of mine. I knew she had done the work because I recognized her style although I did ask the seller to confirm my guess - which she did.
The pieces were being sold without noting on the information tag that the woman selling them had not done the quilting. The tag implied that she had. That made me uncomfortable. It was one of those technically right but ethically wrong kinds of things - at least in my opinion. I debated what to do and later told my friend so she could decide how she wanted to handle the situation. It was too bad because - done differently - they could have had a fabulous partnership. The way it was done left a bad feeling.
One thing I attempt to keep in mind is that sewing is a big industry and a small community. It's so important to have integrity and to build a solid reputation.
The picture above looks dull. In real life, the colors are more vibrant. There are two yellow and two purple buttons at the top and the bottom of the row of embellishments and a purse, two hands, and a face bead in-between. JoAnna has an EXTENSIVE collection of purses and she often carries two or three at one time. They're eclectic and fun - like a lime green watering can - and you love them at the beginning of a day and hate them by the end when you just want to glare down the next gushing woman who exclaims loudly OH... I love your purse. WHERE did you get it?
Go away. Go away. Go away. DO NOT ASK.
JoAnna's favourite color is orange. Since there wasn't much in the bag, I added large orange buttons to the bottom as purse feet. They're 1 1/2" in diameter and stacked two high with blue thread to hold them in place. In hindsight, I should have glued the buttons together first but... being hindsight and all... they're just stitched.
The McCall's pattern came with a handle piece that works quite well. I'll use it again to add the red handles to the Sandi bag. I didn't add them before because I wanted to see what other options might develop while I was finishing the rest of the bags. I'll morph the pattern a bit - slightly shorter, slightly wider - and it'll work. For this bag, one handle is purple/grey plaid and the other is purple/pink/polka dot. Fun.
The lining is made from everything left over. This is the last bag so I dug through the project box and pulled out and pieced together any larger sections of fabric. The lime green is for the sides and bottom and the red with lime stripe is the inside pocket. The other pieces are the inside front and back. No one piece was big enough so every section is pieced from smaller bits. It's eclectic, exuberant, colorful, fitting.
At first I felt like I was compromising using this pattern and not the original idea for a frame bag however - now that I've worked on the project some more - I'm happier with this shape. Along with being a teacher, JoAnna belongs to a book club and enjoys writing poetry and journalling. I think she'll get a lot of use out of this shape, more than she would have with the other one. It's good.
The bag isn't finished yet but most of the decisions have been made. What's left is to put the sections together and add the zipper. Hopefully, I'll have that done to show you next week... along with a picture of what's still left over - all that scrap breeding. Now I need to figure out what to do with those pieces - LOL.
Talk soon - Myrna
Grateful - friendship
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