Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Carry It: A Patchwork bag by Kristin of AlteredStatesStudio


Hello!

When I was considering this project, I wanted to come up with something super creative. I went searching for inspiration for my Carry It project and landed on this little gem of bag.

I liked the patchwork look and felt that would lend itself nicely and allow me to use some of my favorite stencils in this project.







I used white cotton and cut into 4" strips. I picked 3 colors that would look nice together. These 3 are one of my go-to color palettes. These are the Master's Touch acrylic paints found at Hobby Lobby- Viridi (the Green-blue is shown below), Rose Bright Red and Olive Green.  

I pounced my colors through my stencils using some of those cheap cosmetic sponges from the dollar store. I mostly used a variety of stencils; some large and some small- but a good mix for visual composition.


Here is the list of stencils I used for my patchwork:


I varied the colors on my strips, but really- you could do one color per strip as I cut the strips into patches anyway. But that is how I roll- and didn't figure that out until after I was done. Lol!! Oh well! 

Here are my strips before I cut into my patches.


Once I cut apart, the fun began as I mixed and matched to find a cute combination for my bag. One patch here and move that one there.... Here are the patches laid out in my arrangement.


You may notice that some of my patches are not the same size or shape- which is imperfectly perfect! 

As I sewed, I tried to mix and match the color and sizes. It all evened out in the end. I sewed the patches back into strips. Remember to sew right sides together- so match up the sides that you painted on so the sewing goes onto the back side.


Zip those all patches through the sewing machine.....


Here is one remade strip. You will notice that the patches all align on one side and I would trim down what I needed. One strip ended up being about 4"; one about 2" and 3.5". 


Once I had remade three strips, I did iron open my seams so the fabric would lay nicely. I am gonna be honest here.... I am not always the best at using an iron; but, I wanted to make sure I was showing you good sewing habits. 

Because truth be told, it does make a difference. 


Also a side note- I do have a regular iron that I use for crafts however so if I get paint on it, I won't get anything onto our actual clothes. Just in case.... and, look at how nice that seam looks now!!


Once I had all the seams ironed, I sewed the strips together. Making a sheet of patches. The overall dimension of my patchwork piece is 9.75" by 16".

I knew that I wanted to basically line the bag. 

And look how cute this black and white polka dot fabric is. What is showing in the pics is the backside of the fabric; as I wanted the bright, right side of the fabric to be in the inside of the bag.


I sewed the patchwork to the polka dot fabric around the outer edge of the patchwork. You may have noticed that polka dot fabric was larger than the patchwork- that is the plan! So we can fold the edge over onto our patchwork and really see that black and white pop against our colorful patchwork. Check this out below! See?

 

How 'ya doing? Still hanging with me?! We are gonna add a zipper. 


And some cute little handles for this bag. How are we gonna carry it with no handles?!

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You will notice I ran a zig-zag down each strip of the patchwork to make sure it was attached to the lining fabric and the black thread looks nice on the patchwork.

Check out this quick little video to see the finished project.



Thank you so much for reading and watching!!

xo. Kristin

2 comments:

  1. Super cute bag! Did you use a commercial pattern for the bag? Also wondering if you used fabric paints? Love the mix of patterns and color

    ReplyDelete

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