Open Wide Bags With Fancy Stitches

I made 2 more Open Wide Bags. The pattern is from Annie Unrein of ByAnnie. I made both of these in the small size. I made the medium Open Wide in a black with white polka dots first when I tested this bag for Annie. I really like this bag a lot and next time I will be making the large size.

I wanted to try playing with my fancy machine stitches, so I stitched various stitches in variety of threads and colors. I also couched some yarn too. Both bag exteriors were from the same tie dyed piece of fabric that I had. I chose a different lining and accent color for each bag. Since I was making these bags rather artsy looking, I didn't add the accent strip on the fronts of either bag. I had so much fun using the different stitches and threads. I used cotton, polyester and rayon threads. Some were variegated and some were solid colors. I used a variety of yarn scraps too: wool, eyelash yarn, ladder yarn, ribbon yarn, acrylic, and some blends too. I will be using this technique on more bags and quilts because I had so much fun and am using up some yarn scraps too (although not much yarn is used). I should have taken photos of the fabrics with all the stitches on them before I cut them up and sewed the pieces. Several stitches got mostly or completely cut off, but they still turned out looking great!

I stitched this bag, with the green accents, making the stitches vertical. This is one side of the bag.

This is the other side of the bag. Since the stitches were done vertically, you can see most of the same stitches on both sides of the bag.

Here is the side of the bag with the zipper tab tucked in to hold it in place when it's closed.

Again, I chose to use fabric for the inside pockets instead of the mesh suggested in the pattern. 

I left one pocket large and the other one I divided in half with some stitching.

This is the second bag I made with a pink stripe accent fabric. On this bag I chose to stitch the various stitches horizontally, rather than vertically. So each side looks different. I had some tinsel eyelash yarn that I couched. It has a metallic look to it, but the couching flattens a lot of the tinsel eyelash look of the yarn.

The side with the zipper tab tucked in when closed. I used a metal zipper on this bag.

The other side of the bag you can see has different stitches and thread colors. The aqua yarn at the top I couched was a chenille-like yarn. On the very bottom of the back is a rainbow ribbon yarn, but you can barely see it on the bottom right. The pink and blue satin stitch above is the same stitch, only I mirror imaged one of them.

Of course I added zipper pulls to both bags. Sorry part of this photo is a touch out of focus.

The lining has fabric pockets here too.

I also divided one of the inside pockets in half creating a total of 3 inside pockets, like I did with the other bag.

Here are both small bags. Even though they are small, they are pretty roomy inside.

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