House Tote Bag & Fabric Folder

Welcome to My House is a fun blog hop brought to you by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt. Rules are simple Carol says, "Just put a House on it" whatever you make. Okay I can do that because I love houses.

I made a huge sized tote bag that I put a house on or rather more like a little village of houses on, lol! I have seen similar styles of these online and have wanted to make one, so this was the perfect opportunity to give it a go. Most of these little villages are completely round, so I made mine a bit different by adding a hill made of rickrack.

Here is my House tote bag. Well it's more of a Village than just a house! I added a black base to the tote and sewed scrappy batiks on the sides. The village is mostly all batik fabrics too.

A couple of trees and clouds were added as well.

A recessed zipper keeps everything inside this tote from coming out.

Open wide! A zippered pocket plus a slip pocket are inside the tote too.

I divided the slip pocket by sewing 2 pen pockets.

On the back of the tote bag I made a slip pocket using a heart orphan block and I used jumbo rickrack around it.

I used foam stabilizer so the tote stands up on it's own and a zippered top closure too. It is a super roomy tote. Not sure if I will keep or sell this one, since I have so many bags already, but I can't stop making them!!! It's my therapy along with making quilts, so even if it doesn't sell, it's cheaper than paying for therapy, right? LOL!!!

The next project I have been working on is writing a pattern of my own, a Patchwork Fabric Folder, that I am now selling on Craftsy.com The folder instructions show you how to make the folder using an orphan quilt block or sewing scraps to make a patchwork background and adding an applique over it. You could also just make the entire thing in one fabric too. So while I do not include any applique designs in the pattern itself, you could make any small quilt block that you want, pieced or appliqued for the front. I chose to make a small house block for the front of this folder.

My little applique house on the front of the Patchwork Fabric Folder I made.

If you would like to create your own Patchwork Fabric Folder, you can go to my Craftsy store to purchase the pattern. There are 2 pockets inside to hold papers and a pen. The folders make great gifts and you can choose to use an orphan block, add an embroidered block by hand or machine, fussy cut a fabric, or make all out of one fabric. So many possibilities to be creative and use up those fabric scraps in the process!

Psst: I have a free tutorial to show how to Sew a Scrappy Background on Craftsy too.

September 10

Words & Stitches

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Melva Loves Scraps

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Quilting Quietly

Ms P Designs USA

Quilt n Party

September 11

MooseStash Quilting

Vroomans Quilts

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Patchouli Moon Studio

Desert Sky Quilting

Books, Hooks, Sticks, etc.

Clever Chameleon Quilting

September 12

Beaquilter

Days Filled With Joy

Freckled Fox Quiltery

Wont-To-Be-Quilter

Why-Knot-Kwilt

Creative Blonde

Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Quarter Inch Crafter

All Thingz Sewn

Sew Many Yarns

September 13

Creatin' in the Sticks

Quilt Doodle Designs

Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

Domestic Felicity

Life in the Scrapatch

That Fabric Feeling

Just Because Quilts

Hazel’s Daughter

September 14

I Like To Quilt Blog

Selina Quilts

Benita Skinner’s Creative Space

Nettie Sews and Lucky Quilts

Bumbleberry Style

Quilt Fabrication

Sew Golden A Chance

Just Let Me Quilt

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House Quilt

I started this one a couple of years ago. I was planning on adding large blue triangles around the house so it would be set on point. Then I wanted to add pieced log cabin triangles in the 4 corners of the blue triangles so it would be a square again. Well that just wasn't working for me as things weren't lining up right. So I set this aside for a long time and finally finished it the way you see it here. I used a flexible ruler to draw a free-form scalloped edge.

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Round Robin House Quilt

The applique group I belong to had a round robin day. We each made a house of our choosing and appliqued it to a background fabric. Then the idea was to pass the house on to the next person to add a little applique or embroidery or embellishment and when you were done to pass it to the next person and so on. By the end of the day your house looked quite different and this was the result of mine. I just quilted it and added the binding. It was so fun to see how everyone's house turned out. That was the first round robin I ever did, and while this was a one day thing, usually a round robin gets larger and larger as more and more people add on borders or blocks to it and you have more time to complete your addition to the quilt too.

Round Robin House quilt.

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House Quilt

This was a design from a Laura Wasilowski book. I sewed the house quilt to a quilted background piece.

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House Quilt I donated to Japan

I made these little house blocks all from scrap fabrics I had (from a Debbie Mumm book), and hand blanket stitched around the applique hearts. I used a polyester fusible batting for the first time and I didn't like the batting at all. It only stayed fused in the center, but all around the edges the quilt top and backing pulled away from the batting. I didn't care for the loftiness of the poly batting either. I am donating this quilt to charity. It's being sent to Japan. Then it's back to using good cotton batting for me!

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