Butterfly Messenger Bag
This week I've been busily working on making a butterfly messenger bag, using the Victoria collection by Blank Quilting Corporation. The Jaftex Ambassadors were offered the opportunity to make a project using a pattern from Patterns by Annie, and I chose to make MJ's Messenger bag. I was planning to make it for my son as a gift, but I forgot to tell my connection at Jaftex about that, so instead I made one with butterflies. It's all good, though, because now I have a better plan for how to work in some fun piecing into the version for my son.
Here is a video of me talking about the finished bag.
First off, let's drool over this fabric collection. Victoria is a collection by Lisabelle Art Studio. It is chock full of butterflies and flowers, and is sweetly feminine. I would have died for this fabric when I was a pre-teen.
There is a panel with 4 squares perfect for pillow making, or to set in the middle of your larger quilt. I used the border scroll print to make the strap for my bag.
There is also a 24" panel, which was my favorite of the collection. I used a lot of these motifs in the bag, although I couldn't fit the 3 butterflies in anywhere. I neglected to get a good photo of it before I chopped it up, unfortunately. There is a better picture of the whole panel on the Blank Quilting website.
Here are the coordinates. Lots of butterflies perfect for fussy cutting.
Ready to get nervous with me? Look at the pile of supplies I was given to make the bag. This is a lot of stuff that is not my usual stuff. Luckily, Patterns by Annie is great at giving instructions. This was by far the most complicated bag I have made with them, and I made it more difficult by not following all of the directions. Because I was given 1/2 yard cuts, I had to cut up the stabilizing foam before quilting it. Also, I wanted to be able to fussy cut the pieces and make sure I made the best use of my panels.
The first step was to copy the back page of labels, then cut them all out. Then I pinned them up to my wall, to make sure I didn't lose any.
Next I started cutting out pieces. I started at the end of the list, leaving the fabric until the end. This way I was able to see what I needed, and lay the pieces out on the fabric.
I even mocked up the bag, clipping the interfacing together to see how it was made. This way I skipped the frustration of having some directional prints going the wrong way, which has made me lose my temper in the past. I've had some Donald Duck moments.
This time, there were no moments of freak out. There were a couple of times where I was surprised to discover that a whole day had gone by, though. This project took up three entire days. This is what I tell people when they ask why I won't make these for sale.
I did all of the quilting on my Bernina 570. The Bernina was a champ for this whole project. There were times where I was stitching through 3 layers of Soft and Stable, 8 layers of fabric, and strapping. The machine never skipped a stitch. I love my Bernina.
If you are thinking of trying your hand at a bag from Patterns by Annie, do it! The instructions are all very clear, even for someone who is a rookie bag maker. There were 2 steps that confused me, but I was able to figure them out by talking through them, and thinking about the finished product.
Finished bag
There is a mesh pocket against the front of the bag, which I have turned into 3 pockets.
Thanks to Blank Quilting Corporation and Patterns by Annie for supplying me with everything to make this project. My self confidence is way up today. And thank you for reading about my butterfly messenger bag! I hope you get to quilt today!
Previous By Annie's projects
I have a pretty good pile of scraps left over from this project. There are 3 half-yard cuts I didn't use, two undamaged pillow squares, and some other odds and ends left over. Want to win my scraps? Enter below!
**Quick note - if you post your comment on 10/5 and it doesn't show up, don't worry. I'm judging a quilt show today and can't get to my computer until tomorrow morning. I'll approve comments on 10/6.