Tutorial: Oversized Beach Tote

Rebecca from Our Busy Little Bunch is back today with another Blogging Design Ring tutorial--a huge tote, perfect for summer! Check out her tutorial and then at the bottom, see how you can enter to win a fat quarter bundle of Belle of the South, the collection Rebecca used here. 

Here's a fun tutorial for you - just in time for trips to the beach, the park, and all those other fun summer outings that require a lot of STUFF to be packed.  And don't let the size intimidate you - this bag can be sewed up in no time!  But if you like the look of a smaller bag, just decrease the cutting sizes, and these simple instructions are easy to use for any size bag. The fabrics are from the Belle of the South collection.

FABRIC REQUIREMENTS:

• 2/3 yard main outer fabric
• 1 yard fabric for side panels and exterior zippered pocket
• 1 yard fabric for straps and binding at top of bag
• 1 yard fabric for lining
• 1/2 yard fabric for bottom of bag
• Interfacings (these are my recommendations, but there are lots of options out there: a heavyweight fusible interfacing for exterior bag pieces, a fusible fleece for interior bag pieces, and a thick fusible interfacing for base of bag.
• One 10" zipper (or larger, cut down to size later)

CUT YOUR FABRIC:

• Main panels 20" (h) x 20" (w) - cut 2 from main fabric and 2 from lining
• Side panels 20" (h) x 12" (w) - cut 2 from side panel fabric and 2 from lining
• Bottom 20" (w) x 12" (depth of bag) - cut 2 from fabric selected for bottom of bag
• Binding for top of bag - 2.5" x 70" (two strips pieced together)
• Exterior zipper pocket - cut two pieces 10" x 10" and one piece 10" x 6"
• Straps 60" x 8" (cut 2)

Before beginning, fuse interfacings to main panels, side panels, and bottom piece.

* please note: all seam allowance are 1/2"*

MAKE EXTERIOR ZIPPERED POCKET:

• Take your 10" x 6" piece of fabric, and place zipper on one long edge.

• Fold fabric over top of zipper, so zipper is sandwiched between the two right sides of the fabric. Pin in place.
• Using zipper foot, sew top edge.  Be sure to stop and move zipper tab out of your way as you sew so you get a nice straight stitch line.

• Turn piece of fabric right side out.

•  Press in half, and make sure zipper opens and closes easily.

• Take your two 10" square pieces of fabric and layer unfinished zipper edge between the right sides of fabric.  Pin and sew edge just like you did for other half of zipper.  Press fabric away from zipper.

• Center finished zipper pocket on one of the main exterior panels. Baste unfinished side edges to hold in place.  Set piece aside.

 MAKE AND ATTACH STRAPS:

• Take straps, and iron in half.  Then iron halves again to center, creating 2" wide straps.

• Sew close to each long edge, and approx every 1/4" beside that, creating nice strong straps with lots of stitch lines.

•  Pin straps to main panels of bag, completely covering raw edges of zippered pocket, and using your ruler to pin them on nice and straight.  Stitch on top of stitch lines on both long edges of straps, stopping 1" from top of bag.

ASSEMBLE BAG EXTERIOR:

• Sew your main panels to your side panels, right sides together.  BUT, stop your stitch line and backstitch 1/2" from bottom of bag.

•  Pin one of your bag bases to your exterior pieces, right sides together. On corners, fold back seam allowances as shown below and pin in place.  When stitching over corners, reinforce them by backstitching on either side of corner pivot. 

• Turn bag right-side out.

ASSEMBLE LINING:

• Using the same method as bag exterior, sew main and side panels together, and attach bag base.
• Do NOT turn right-side out.

COMPLETING YOUR BAG:

• Place bag lining inside of bag exterior, making sure to push corners in place and line up seams.
• Pin upper edge of bag, and baste close to raw edge.

• Press your binding in half, and then edges to centers, creating a narrow binding.  

• Use your favorite method of attaching binding to sew it to top of bag - you can do this by machine, or a combination of machine and finishing it off by hand.  I prefer to use lots of pin and pin it to top of bag, and then machine stitch it. Make sure to conceal your unfinished edges or start and stop sewing with 6" of binding left on either end - sew those ends together and cut off excess, and then sew down last section.  

 ENJOY YOUR FINISHED BAG!

And there you have it - an oversized beach tote.  This will fit all our towels, sunscreen, sand toys, and snacks.  And the exterior pocket is great for my wallet and phone.  I'm looking forward to toting one bag for everything this summer!

And wouldn't you know, the first thing my little guy asked when he saw this bag was if he could climb in.

  

Thanks, Rebecca! Head over to Rebecca's blog to enter for a chance to win a fat quarter bundle of Belle of the South. The giveaway is open through Monday, May 27th. 

Daydreamin': Day Lily

While we're at Quilt Market, we're showing off another new fabric line, Day Lily. Big, bold florals in warm golds, mossy greens, and perfect purples, plus some really cool coordinating small prints.

 Watch for this free quilt pattern soon on our website, giving Day Lily a modern twist.

Market Sneak Peek

We're in Portland, Oregon, getting ready for Quilt Market this weekend! We'll have some photos to share from the show next week, but for now, we wanted to show you some of what will be going in our booth.
We're decorating the booth with a bright new fabric line we really love, Mystic Forest. Full of elephants, monkeys and bears, this children's line has three great colorways--a bit off the beaten path of traditional pink or blue. 

 It also includes printed growth charts, and many of the fabrics come in flannel and laminate as well.

Our talented art department brought some of the monkeys, bears and elephants to life for the booth, both on painted wood and as stuffed animals. 

Cute, aren't they?!

A Floral Star

What's the best way to make a focal fabric stand out? 

Surround it by a great cast of coordinates. 

Lucy Fazely and Barb MacDonald did just that in their "Eastern Journey" wall hanging, featured in The Quilter magazine. Lucy chose her favorite print from the Asian Garden collection, the packed floral, and built larger and larger stars out from it. 

The result? An eye-catching wall hanging or table topper!

"Eastern Journey"  by Lucy Fazely and Barb McDonald;
featured in The Quilter magazine June-July 2013 issue.

Q. What attracted you to the Asian Garden line? 
Lucy: The rich colors with gold overlays. I love floral fabrics and the packed floral and lilac blooms are absolutely gorgeous.

Q. How did you choose which prints to use? 
Lucy: I started with those florals as the central focus and then selected the fabrics I felt best brought out those rich color in the florals. Even though the other fabrics in the line are beautiful, I felt many of them were too busy to put into this quilt because I wanted the florals to be the star.

Q. Why the medallion style star design? 
Lucy: I wanted to stay true to the Asian theme. Stars and medallion motifs are often found in Asian art, which made the medallion star a natural choice.

Q. What do you like best about the quilt? 
Lucy: The way the bright florals are enhanced by the purple, gold, black, green and red tonal fabrics.

Q. What do you see the quilt being used for? 
Lucy: It was designed as a table topper, but would also be nice on a wall. In the right fabrics, it could be made as a baby quilt. (Note: Watch for a post on our new baby collection, Mystic Forest, coming soon!)

Q. Anything else interesting to share about the quilt? 
Lucy: This is an easy-to-make quilt. I designed it with quick corner triangles to make it a quick project. It’s also a great project to make in different colorways for each season.

See the entire Asian Garden collection here. 
Find the kit for this project here. 
Find The Quilter magazine here.

Playing with Marblehead

Jessica Toye, a member of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild who blogs over at Two Hens Cluckin', designed three quilts using the Marblehead Global Brights collection. The quilts will hang in our booth at Quilt Market next week, but in the meantime we're sharing them here because we think that they're fantastic and they'll provide inspiration for the Marblehead Challenge.

Q: What attracted you to the Marblehead Global Brights fabric?

Jessica: I love the way the Global Brights read as almost solids. I'm a fan of the modern quilting movement and there are TONS of solids used there. The Global Brights are such fun, happy colors that really played well together and really just spoke to me. 

Q. How did you come up with the designs?

Jessica: I wanted to create a few quilts showing various sized pieces of the fabrics. Dresser Drawers shows the biggest chunks of each fabric. Library Stacks is designed to create a quilt with a little more movement. Several of these fabrics have a flowy feel to them and I wanted to explode that idea into a quilt design. Sunset Boulevard was designed to resemble a rainbow or spectrum. 

Q. Which quilt do you like best, and why?

Jessica: Sunset Boulevard is my favorite of the three. I feel it has the best balance in composition. It is the cleanest and most dynamic design of the three. It was also the most fun to make. 

Q. What surprised you about these quilts?

Jessica: The quilting! The thread I used on all three quilts is the same color. (Superior Threads: So Fine! #50 - #421 - Marigold) It's really interesting to do so many quilts from the same materials and see the huge difference in the final outcome.

Q. Tell us a bit about the machine quilting on each quilt.

Jessica: Library Stacks is a simple meandering stitch. The piecing portion of this quilt had so much going on that a simple all over design was necessary to finish it off. 

When I was deciding how to quilt Sunset Boulevard, I was watching Angela Walter's Craftsy class, Machine Quilting Negative Space. Angela uses a tile design in her class that I really wanted to try. I thought it gave the spectrum piecing a fractured look. Almost like the rainbow of the piecing was being shattered into various pieces. Within the tiles, I used Angela's swirl design to contrast the sharp angles of the tiles and linear feel of the piecing. 

The quilting on Dresser Drawers was done in another of Angela Walter's quilting designs, her wood grain motif. My intent was to stick with the dresser idea and add a bit of motion to the quilt's appearance.

12 Reasons to Look Forward to Autumn

11 autumn-hued prints in our new Fall Tapestry collection

+ 1 free quilt pattern to use with the line!

Why are we sharing a fall-themed line of fabric during the first week of May? We'll answer that with a seemingly unrelated question:
If you're sewing something as a Mother's Day gift or a graduation gift, how close are you to finishing it? 
We all know that despite the best of intentions, life gets in the way and gifts or seasonal projects don't always get completed on time. 
Our solution: share Fall Tapestry, a gorgeous leafy autumn collection, in May. Plenty of time to finish up that table runner or quilt before the actual leaves begin to fall! 

Click here to see the entire line and download the free quilt pattern, designed by Sue Harvey and Sandy Boobar of Pine Tree Country Quilts.

Seeing Red

...but not in the way you think--this is good red, not angry red!

Our new line, Roses Are Red, is pure color merged with great texture.

You need to see some of these fabrics up close to appreciate them, so we're doing just that.

Love this maze-inspired print

A new take on chevrons

Dark and light clamshells

Check out the free pattern for this cool quilt using the Roses Are Red collection, designed by Sue Harvey and Sandy Boobar of Pine Tree country Quilts, on our website.

Speaking of red, have you heard about the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's collaborative effort to create flags which will be strung into banners and hung in Boston "to bring peace and love from far and wide" after the marathon day tragedy? You can read more about it here. The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild (the one closest to us, as we're also located in KC) is participating as well, and you can read about their plans here. What a great idea!