Simply Chic Carry All Number 6

After gifting a friend of mine one of these bags, she promptly ordered another one for her knitting and crochet supplies.  I rummaged through my drawers and found a beautiful and colorful Da Gama fabric to use for the outside of the bag. Went to the shops to buy coordinating fabrics as well as all the other supplies needed and started cutting and labelling the 57 pieces of fabric, corlene, batting and vinyl needed to stitch a bag.

Preparation included ironing the corlene to the various pieces of lining, quilting the outside panels of the bag and making bias binding.

I always use a serpentine stitch with a double needle to do the quilting with a variegated thread.

After finishing off the outside of the bag with an outer pouch and ribbon loops for attaching the handles,

it was time to move on to the inside and stitch both pockets.

The next step is to make the gusset and add the back and front panels as well as both inside pockets to the gusset and with that the main part of the bag is complete.

Here the bag is opened up and below when zipped up.

The last item to stitch, was the bag insert which attach to the Velcro inside the main bag.

With the main fabric being so colorful, I bought a whole rainbow of zips which might be a drawback as it means multiple thread changes.

I just loved stitching this bag as nothing is really difficult to construct although it looks complex.  I must also complement our local Pfaff/Husqvarna dealer whose instructions are still clear to follow even 13 years after stitching the original bags - this post refers.

5th Simply Chic Carryall finished

The 5th Simply Chic Carry All I wrote about in this post, is finished.  I gave the bag to a dear friend and former colleague (of about 25 years) of mine, Sonia Botes.  She wanted one ever since she saw mine and when she was retrenched last November, I decided to make her one just to say thank you for her friendship, her prayers for me and my family and for just being there all these years.

The front

The back

The inside without the removable insert

and with the insert.

The lucky lady.

Simply Chic Carryall

Maresa Pretorius, my embroidery friend of more than 15 years, invited me in 2010 to join her and her sister in law, Annelie Opperman (which have also became a close friend of mine since we started quilting together in August 2010) to make these bags under the guidance of Marie Coetzee, our local Pfaff dealer.  I had no idea what the bag looked like at the time, but trusted Maresa that it would be well worth it.  And was she right!

Closed, the bag looks like this:

The inside pockets:

 

And the removable insert with lots of little compartments (I made 2 for my bag) :

 

This is not a cheap or fast project, but I can really recommend it.  I take my bag everywhere I go and it is always a hit.  Everybody wants one!  So, if you are not in Bloemfontein or close to a Pfaff dealer, you can get the pattern here at Michelle's Designs and make yourself one.  You will be forever grateful as all your quilting stuff (needlework or embroidery etc.) will be neatly stored in one place. 

 

I finished my bag just before starting quilt classes and is busy making the 5th one.  Only very special friends and/or family qualify for such a gift  :-)

 

Herewith photo's of my bag - stuffed to the brim. 

 

The bag opened with both removable inserts on top of each other held in place with Velcro.

The 2nd removable insert.

The inside pockets

 



Packed and ready to go with everything in it's place!