feeling patchy…

I finally finished the gift for my Stepmum to say thank you for Whizzy. My dad told me that the original intention in her having a sewing machine was to make a patchwork blanket, so I thought Id use that idea and create something a little different. She is about as keen on charity shop shopping as I am, so I thought making her a tote bag to sling over her shoulder whilst mooching around them would be in order. It is my very first project on the new sewing machine so Im still trying to brush up on my skills. I used spare fabrics I had, all of which had a purple/pink theme. I created a square template and cut all of the patches out. Some of the fabrics were quite flimsy, so I used fusible interfacing to strengthen them and make the assembling less stressy. After sewing the squares together, I lined them using a purple cotton pillowcase and attached the straps. I then put right sides together and sewed round the three edges, obviously leaving one side open. I folded inwardly the top hem and topstitched to create a neater, more sturdy edge. Once it was complete, I felt the central square was a little dull. I remembered I had a large purple flower button which I added as an afterthought to jazz it up a bit. In hindsight, if I were to do this again, I would have attached the button before inserting the lining of the bag to avoid seeing the stitching from attaching it on the inside. Lesson learnt on that one! Overall, I am quite chuffed with it, a good thing to start with I think and hopefully will show even a little bit just how grateful I am to have this amazing piece of kit. I sent it off today so hopefully, in the words of Elvis, it won’t come back return to sender 🙂