Blog Archives | Bonjour Quilts

How to sew a quilted tote bag

August 1, 2018 By Kirsty 11 Comments

You really, really need a quilted tote bag. You might not know it yet, but you do!

Tote bags are super handy for carrying things, and carrying them gently. We’ve had a few fabric library bags get holes in them from book corners. Quilted tote bags are much better at withstanding this type of wear.

Quilted tote bags are also very handy for long trips in the car (when the bag’s full of clothes, on the way to an overnight stay with grandparents) as they double as a pillow.

This quilted tote bag came to be when I was sent some lovely fabric panels from a soon-to-be released fabric line called Alphabet Safari.

The artwork is by a talented local Australian designer (Jennifer Bell of Creative Monsoon) and the fabric will be available in October. My youngest son saw the animal panels and fell head over heels in love with the lion, so I asked if he’d like a bag. A very big YES was the answer.

If you’d like a PDF of the instructions for this quilted tote bag pattern, you’ll find a spot to put in your email address at the bottom of the post.

What you need to make a quilted tote bag

two of the fabric panels, one for each side of the quilted tote

two fat quarters, one for each side of the quilted tote

one half yard of fabric for the lining

one fat quarter of fabric for the handles

2 pieces of batting approx. 19″ x 22-1/2″ each

Sewing your quilted tote bag

First of all, trim two of the individual panels from the yardage. It’s normal for printed designs not to be perfectly square, so don’t sweat it if you find you need to trim a bit extra on some parts.

From each of the fat quarters for the tote sides you need to cut 3 strips 3″ x 21″ and one strip 5″ x 21″.

All seams are a quarter inch.

Sew a 3″ strip to the long edges of the fabric panel, press to the dark side and trim the edges flush with the panel.

Then sew a 3″ strip to the top of the panel and a 5″ strip to the bottom, press to the dark side and trim edges flush with the panel.

Repeat this for the other panel with the other FQ strips.

Check that both of your panels are the same size (trim if required). Mine came out at 16- 3/8″ x 20-1/4″. Feel free to trim yours down to a rounder figure (I just wanted to maximise my fabric).

Quilt your fabric panels

Baste each panel to one of the batting pieces. I used basting spray, but basting pins will do the job too. I wanted to mention that I used this Dream Green quilt batting* . It’s made from recycled plastic bottles, which is fantastic! I’m not a fan of pure polyester for bed quilts, but for things like bags, table runners and wall hangings it’s a great choice. And now it’s more environmentally friendly!

For the quilting I decided to go with a cross hatch quilt design, which I marked out with a hera marker*.

If you want a more structured bag then aim for lots of dense quilting. If a floppier, more pillow-worthy finish would suit you then ease up on the amount of quilting. Details of how I measured and marked my panels can be found in the PDF handout (see below to have it emailed to you).

Once you’ve finished quilting your panels, trim them again to remove excess batting. You might find that you need to trim your panels down a smidge to get them square again. And you want them to both be the same size as we’re about to sew them together.

Sew the quilted tote bag outer layer

Place the panels right sides together and pin around 3 sides (leave the top edge open). Sew all 3 edges together. I used my walking foot as there are quite a few layers involved here.

Next we’re going to box the bottom corners, so that the bag has a bit of body. (I forgot to press my bag seams open before this step, I would recommend you do that first.) Keep the bag inside out, and pull the two panels apart down near the corner. The aim is to line up the bottom seam with the adjacent side seam and make a triangle from the corner.

This triangle can be flattened down on your cutting mat (it should be close to a 90 degree triangle). Mark 2″ along each side and draw a diagonal line between the points with a pencil.

Sew along the pencil line and then trim the corner a quarter inch from the line.

Repeat with the other corner at the bottom of the bag. Turn the bag right side out and press.

Sew the quilted tote bag lining

From your half yard of fabric cut a piece 15-7/8″ x 40-1/4″. This measurement is based on my panels being 16-3/8″ x 20-1/4″ before I sewed them together. If you have trimmed your panels to a different size, this is how to work out what size you need to cut your lining:

Take a quarter inch away from your panel width measurement. Take your panel length and double it, then take away a quarter inch. Or for those of us who love equations:

[Panel width – 1/4″] x [ (Panel length x 2) – 1/4″]

I like to make the lining a little smaller than the bag’s outer layer so it fits nicely in there.

Take the lining fabric and fold it in half along its length, and then sew down both sides (keep the top edge open).

Leave the lining inside out and box the corners as we did for the bag outer. (Again, I forgot to iron my seams open, learn from my mistake!)

Fold the top edge of the bag lining over a half inch toward the wrong side and press in place. Do the same for the bag outer layer.

Sew the tote bag handles

Take the fat quarter for your handles and cut two strips 4-1/2″ x 21″. Fold one strip in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and press. Open the strip up again and fold the long edges in from each side to meet in the middle, along the pressed line. Press in place.

Fold the fabric strip in half again, along the first pressed line. Both your raw edges are now nicely stowed away. Sew a seam down each side of the strip to hold it all in place. I like to sew several lines – I like the look and think it makes the handles a bit stronger. (If you’re concerned about strength you could also iron on a strip of interfacing on the wrong side of the fabric before you make the handles.) Do the same to the other strip so you have two handles.

Assemble your quilted tote bag

Here we go – we’re on the home stretch now. This is where the magic happens!

Take the bag outer (right side out) and the bag liner (wrong side out) and fit them together. The liner will be inside the bag outer and the wrong sides of each will be touching. Line up the folded top edges of both bag layers and then pin them together. Your handles need to be pinned in between the bag layers as well. Eye up where you’d like them to go and make sure there’s a good amount of handle between the layers (about 3/4″) so it’ll be well secured.

All that’s left to do is top stitch around the perimeter of the bag opening to secure the handles and join the bag liner to the outer layer. I like to do several rounds of top stitching because I know how much “love” my 7 year old gives his bags. I like those handles to be really secure!

And there you have it – a quilted tote bag. Soft and sturdy and ready for all manner of toting. 🙂

Please feel free to save this tutorial to your Pinterest account. If you’d like a PDF copy of these instructions you can have it emailed to you by putting your email address in the box below. Please note that you’ll also receive my newsletter, which will keep you up to date with new tutorials, patterns and of course, outtakes. Everyone loves outtakes 🙂

Keep an eye out for Safari Alphabet fabrics in October – and if you’re a quilt shop and you’d like to stock this line, be sure to get in contact with Two Green Zebras!

Cheers and happy sewing,

Kirsty

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How to Machine Appliqué Your Quilt

July 2, 2018 By Kirsty 15 Comments

If you’re looking for information on how to machine appliqué EPP (or anything for that matter) to your quilt, you’re in the right place! Today I have a tutorial on how to machine appliqué some pretty little EPP hexagon flowers to a quilt block background.

Hello and welcome to those participating in the Kingfisher Stitch-Along! “What is the Kingfisher Stitch-Along?” I hear my regular readers ask. It’s a joint project hosted by Rachel from Stitched in Color and Jodi from Tales of Cloth, to sew the beautiful Kingfisher quilt.

This quilt combines hand pieced English Paper Pieced (EPP) blooms, appliquéd (by hand or machine) to a background fabric, with machine pieced diamonds. I think you’ll agree the result is one scrapalicious and gorgeous quilt!

You can head over to Jodi’s online store to get all the templates and EPP papers you might need. She has a great kit which has papers and acrylic templates for the two shapes in the quilt.

By this stage of making your Kingfisher Quilt you should have a bunch of EPP blooms and some background diamonds to sew them to. You can find Rachel’s tutorial on how to cut your diamonds here.

Before you start make sure you’ve taken the EPP papers out of all the hexigons in your EPP blooms and trim any threads that might extend outside the edges of your EPP (if you glue basted your hexi shapes this is unlikely to be an issue).

Next, fold your background diamond in half from point to point, on both axes and finger press. This is just to give you an easy way to centre your EPP bloom on the diamond prior to machine appliqué.

To fix your bloom to the background, ready for machine sewing, you can either use pins or double-sided fusible web*. I had no problems at all using pins, but if you’re really nervous about the machine appliqué process then you might prefer to use the fusible web. It’s very secure and you won’t have to worry about pricking your fingers. Just follow the instructions on the product to adhere the fusible to your bloom and then to fuse the bloom, centred, to the background diamond.

If pinning, make sure your pins aren’t too close to the EPP edges – you don’t want them to interfere with your sewing machine foot as you sew around the edges.

If you have an open toe sewing foot you will want to use it here. Much like how a night out is more fun wearing an open toe sandal, machine appliqué is a much more enjoyable experience with an open toe foot as you can better see what you’re doing.

The great thing about EPP is that the edges are already turned under so there are no raw edges to contend with. You can pretty much use any stitch you like to secure it to your background as long as you sew it close enough to the edge to secure the two fabric layers (the shape and the folded under edge).

For this example I’m just using a regular straight stitch for my machine appliqué. I like to start sewing midway along an edge. Start with a few backstitches to secure your thread, or if you’re lucky enough to have a machine with a securing stitch, use that. Then start sewing, slowly, towards your first corner.

I have seen some folks comment that they’re a little concerned about stretching the bias edges of their background diamonds. While you’re guiding your EPP/diamonds under your sewing needle, don’t grab the diamonds by their edges. Rest your hands on the outer edges of your EPP and use that if you need to give direction. But really, because we’re sewing in straight lines rather than curves there’s not a lot of need to push your pieces around under the needle. At most you’ll just need a bit of course correction. My other tip is to sew slowly – this will negate the need for sudden, panicked movements. Slow and steady wins the race!

Alright, so we’re sewing our first edge, heading toward a corner. If you’re sewing toward a corner where two EPP pieces meet, you should aim to land your needle down exactly where they meet.

Then lift your sewing foot and pivot the piece until your foot is in line with the next edge.

If you’re sewing toward an outer corner on a hexie, just eyeball it and stop a seam-distance away from the upcoming edge. If you’re a perfectionist then by all means feel free to mark where you want to stop with a water soluble* or air soluble* pen before you get to that corner. Pivot and continue on your way.

Continue around the whole of the bloom until you get back to when you started. I recommend going past your start point 5 or so stitches, backstitch to secure and then cut your threads. You now have a machine appliquéd EPP flower.

You will see that above that my seams are by no means perfectly even. Once all my diamonds are sewn together this will be very hard to detect, so I urge you not to get to per-finicky as you’re sewing. When you are focussing on a very small area it can feel like a millimetre difference is as big as a quarter inch. It really isn’t, and it really won’t be noticeable if you’ve stopped a bit early or late on a corner.

As well as using standard straight stitches, machine appliqué is an opportunity to experiment with some of the fancier stitches on your machine. For my next bloom I chose an irregular edge satin stitch (I have a Janome 8900QCP and it’s stitch #54).

I would definitely recommend a test drive when using a decorative stitch. It’s important to figure out how the needle swings when forming the stitch so you know where you want your needle to be when you stop for corner pivots.

I just use some plain hexi shapes when doing a practice, I don’t bother with using complete EPP units.

Once I have an understanding of the stitch pattern and where I need to put my needle down I can then go on to sew my real pieces.

Sew up to the corner, stopping in line with the corner and when the needle is over to the right. Lift the presser foot:

Then pivot the piece, lower the foot and sew the next line.

For an inner corner, you stop where the pieces join and when your needle is over to the right.

What I will say with the wider decorative stitches is to make sure you go slow where your EPP is closest to the edge of the diamond. The wider stitches have a tendency to “grab” at the fabric and pull it into a little pucker within the stitch itself. Just take your time on the EPP edges closes to the edge of the diamond and you’ll be fine.

Once you have your EPP appliquéd to your diamonds it’s best to sew them together into a quilt top as soon as possible. This will protect the bias edges from stretching with excess handling. If you can’t sew them up straight away, make sure they’re stored in a box or container of some sort so you can just move the box around rather than picking them all up and stressing their edges.

If you have any questions (or tips to pass on) be sure to pop a comment below.

Happy sewing!

Kirsty

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Adori Quilt Block Tutorial

June 24, 2018 By Kirsty 22 Comments

Today I have a quilt block tutorial showing you how to sew up one of these Adori quilt blocks. Sound good? Let’s get to it!

Adori is a log cabin-based quilt block and is made from 3 main fabrics and a background fabric. So first of all, you need to choose your fabrics! Will you go for a monochrome palette, or something neutral and very grown-up looking?

Adori Quilt Block Pattern Tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Or perhaps like me you’ll go super-colourful* (I’ve chosen some Tula Pink prints here).

I recommend using fabrics that are either solid or have a non-directional print so you won’t have to worry about fabrics appearing “upside down”.

Once you have your 3 main fabrics and a background fabric, the next big decision is what order you’ll put them in. I will say that this is the part that takes me the longest to decide on.

They all look great, right? So which to choose? Sigh.

Not only that, but then there’s the colours and layout of the whole quilt:

If you use a 5 x 7 block layout, this will give you a quilt that finishes 60″ x 84″ (Twin size).

Don’t forget to consider different background colours too. That will make it even harder/longer to choose. You’re welcome. 🙂

If you’re like me and spend a lot of time umming and ahhing over colour placement, it may be helpful to get your colour pencils out and experiment a little. I have a colour-in sheet printable if you’d like to do just that.

If you put your email address in the boxes below you’ll get a PDF download that you can print out and colour to your heart’s content. You’ll also be put on my newsletter list which lets you know whenever I publish tutorials like this one. In fact, if you were already on my newsletter list you would have received this printable download in your inbox. Handy! (And of course, if you don’t think it’s handy and you don’t want me in your inbox, it’s very easy to unsubscribe with a single click.)

This quilt block would also make a great scrappy quilt, too. You could have fun mixing and matching your favourite left-overs into pretty colour combinations for each block.

Right, let’s get on with sewing this quilt block! Firstly, you’ll need to cut the following pieces for each quilt block (C1 = colour 1, etc, and the white is your background fabric):

We’re going to go through each colour group and sew the required components.

Please note that I will be pressing all seams outwards for this block. If you are going to be making a quilt without sashing (i.e. you’ll be joining these blocks directly together) then you’ll want to press the seams for alternate blocks in different directions [outwards AND inwards]. That way your seams will nest when you sew your blocks together. The best way to keep track of this is to mark it on your colour-in sheet PDF download.

Start with first 3 pieces of fabric in the C1 column. Sew the small background pieces to each of the short edges of the C1 rectangle, like this (the arrows show my outward pressing directions. Reverse direction if you’re making an inward pressed block):

Now take the last two pieces of fabric in the C1 column and sew them together, then cut in half to give two components, each 2″ wide:

OK, moving along to the next colour. Just like we did with the last two pieces, take the C2 and background fabrics and sew them together. Then cut them apart into four 2″ components each:

And finally, we do the same again with C3:

We’ll now sew the four log cabin corners for the block. Each log cabin will use a “short” and “long” component in C2 and C3, as well as a 2.75″ background square:

Sew the first round of the log cabin with the centre square, the short C2 component and then the long C2 component. Complete the log cabin with the second round using the short and long C3 components. (Remember to press your seams according to whether it’s an inward or outward block – mine are outward here):

We’re on the home stretch now. Take the two short C1 components and sew them in between 2 of the log cabins as seen below:

And now sew these two parts either side of the long C1 component to give the final block (measures 12.5′ x 12.5″ unfinished):

Wahoo! You’ve finished your Adori block.

Don’t forget, if you want the colour-in PDF be sure to put your details in below to get it by email.

I hope you find this tutorial useful, and if you do make something with this quilt block I’d love to see it. Drop me a line!

Cheers,

Kirsty

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