Simple handbag: flower appliqué tutorial

At the end of my last post I had cut out some fabric ready to make a handbag using the Phoebe Bag free pattern found on Pinterest.

This is what it looks like with all the pieces assembled!

I love the shape, it's just what I was looking for; slightly rounded bottom corners, a narrower top, a perfect length shoulder strap and a neat fastening.

Rebeka Lambert's tutorial for the Phoebe Bag was so easy to follow, with clear step-by-step instructions and a printable pattern - I'd highly recommend it.

I did make a few changes. The interfacing I used was quite padded and I also included two inner layers of lining fabric to stiffen it. I like that it holds its shape without collapsing.

My auntie kindly showed me how to appliqué the flowers as she's been making them as brooches. I thought I'd share the process with you because they really are simple and look so cheerful on a bag like this. This is, of course, not the only way to go about appliqué but it worked for me!

Flower appliqué tutorial

 

#1 - Select your scraps

Probably the most difficult bit of the whole process - deciding which colours to use together! I rifled through the scraps box for a good half an hour wavering between pastel shades and bright patterns before deciding on the latter.

#2 - Draw your flowers

Draw out your flowers on the non sticky side of a piece of fusible interfacing such as Vilene. The stiffness of the interfacing depends on what you intend to do with your appliqué flowers. Mine was quite thin but could have done with being a bit thicker.

Once you're happy with your flower shapes, cut them out but don't cut right up to the lines. A circle around the flower will do. Iron them on to the wrong side of your chosen scraps. To avoid the iron getting sticky, use another piece of spare fabric on top of the interfacing as you iron.

#3 - Cut out your appliqué flowers

Once your interfacing is securely stuck on, you can cut out the flowers with fabric scissors. Here are mine all lined up on the arm of the chair. I chose to do a variety of sizes, but you can keep them all the same, or vary the shape and style.

#4 - Cut out the centres

Repeat steps two and three but this time with circles for the centre of the flowers. I used the same fabric as the lining of my bag to bring the design together.

Place the centres in the middle of the flowers ready to sew.

#5 - Sew the centres

I think that this is where ironing them on with Bondaweb may have been useful to keep them in place, but it wasn't too difficult without it.

Using the free motion foot on your sewing machine, sew on the centres in a contrasting colour. I've used black here. Lower the feed dogs when using the free motion foot to allow you to freely move the fabric around. You needn't turn the fabric, but instead direct the needle around the edge of the circle by moving it forwards, backwards and side to side smoothly. It reminds me of using an Etch A Sketch!

I stitched once around the centres at this stage.

#6 - Arrange your flowers

Place the flowers on your fabric where you'd like them to be sewn. I've arranged mine on the front piece of my bag. Play around with the arrangement until you've got it exactly how you want it. I had originally thought I'd sew the flowers over one another in a bunch, but it didn't look quite right when I tried it.

You can pin or tack on the flowers to keep them in position while you sew the others.

#7 - Sew on the flowers

If you haven't used a particularly stiff interfacing, you may need to put something underneath to stop the machine bunching the fabric as you sew. A tear away stabilizer should do the trick. It's a bit like paper and, as the name suggests, just tears away from the underside of the fabric once you've stitched on your appliqué.

I sewed twice around the edge of my flowers, and then once more around the middle as they'd already been stitched once.

Don't they look pretty!

You can then use your appliqued fabric to make up whatever project you're working on.

I'm so pleased with my lovely flower bag!

This isn't all I've been working on this weekend, I'll be back later in the week with some photos of our sunny walk and some half-finished projects!

Feel free to pin from this post on Pinterest and a little share on Facebook would make my day :D

I'm sharing today's post on the following blogs: Handmade Harbour, Be Different Act Normal and Tatertots and Jello.

Cute Easter egg decorating ideas and creative highlights of my week

As schools have broken up for Easter now, it seems like a good time to begin getting stuck into a few Easter crafts. A while ago I blew out some eggs, leaving the shells to decorate. This little bunny was inspired by a sheep I saw on Pinterest. It's so simple to do so it makes a great Easter craft for children. The hardest part is blowing the egg out - it takes a lot of puff! There's a printable worksheet here if you'd like to try it yourself.

I like him because he stands up on his own. He's now taken pride of place on my desk at work.

Here's the little sheep that inspired me, the Pinterest link takes you to this webpage, but I'm not sure who to credit the design or photo to.


I think I'll attempt something a little more elaborate with the remaining eggs - I'd like to try cutting sections out but I'm not sure how easy that will be. Does anyone have some other Easter egg decorating ideas they could recommend?

It was Sam's birthday in the week so we went out for meal to East the Water, West the Orient, an oriental restaurant just down the road. It serves a variety of different style food - Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai - and everything we tried was delicious. I ended up taking some home in a doggy bag which made a very yummy lunch the next day!

I baked Sam a birthday cake, but as you can see, cake decorating is not my strong point.

Luckily the taste was its redeeming feature!

I spent Saturday with my Mum at Trago Mills. For those of you who don't know it, it's a huge shop selling everything you could possibly need and a lot more. They've got a well-stocked haberdashery section where Mum helped me pick out some fabric to sew some more bags.

After a lot of deliberation and several laps of the fabric aisles, we settled on these.

The spotty fabric is to be lined with the red cotton and I'll applique the canvas on the right and line it with the dainty little hearts.

I can't wait to get started, but before I do, I'm trying out a few more bag designs in some left over fabric I already had. The pieces are all cut out ready to go and I've begun cutting out fabric scraps for the applique.

I'm using the free 'Phoebe' bag pattern by Rebeka Lambert. I just love the curved top and fastening, and the neat look of the finished bag.

Mum and I visited my auntie yesterday who makes beautiful fabric pieces, from bags and brooches to wall hangings and textured quilts. Any visit to her house always leaves me feeling very inspired, even more so when I walk out with a huge stash of scraps that she's given me! Her website, Lime Green Lizzie, showcases some of her work, but photos on the screen really don't do it justice.

Yesterday she showed us some beautiful stitched flower brooches she made which have provided the inspiration for the appliqué for this latest bag. Fingers crossed mine turn out as well as my auntie's!

I'll leave you with this biro sketch I've been working on. It's been a while since I've done some drawing, but this has reminded me how relaxing it is.

I chose buttons as my subject matter as I just love them! I'll have to start scouring charity shops to build up a stash as I don't own any at the moment and it would be great to have a good variety to dip into when embellishing projects.

This was drawn using an ordinary black biro and gently hatching to build up layers of depth.

Perhaps I'll finish it, perhaps not.

Today I'm linking up on the following blogs: Handmade Harbour, Lamb Around, Manon Popje's Illustrations, Tatertots and Jello and Be Different Act Normal.