Room With A View

 Hi all -

It's hard to believe another year is almost over! Time sure does fly! 

This week I made a Room With A View bag designed by ByAnnie. Or maybe I should call it a container rather than a bag? It's a cube with a vinyl window on the front so you can see the contents.

Room With A View

It has handles on the sides and top, and a zippered mesh pocket on the inside.

Room With A View - Inside

I thought this would be a nice container for storing quilting projects. I made the largest size so it could store the supplies for a good sized quilt. The main fabric is a fun Tula Pink design that I thought would be fun for a bag.

Room With A View - Main Fabric

I quilted a wavy line in the dinosaur strips and a loopy design in the other area.

Room With A View - Quilting Designs

Because the two quilting designs go in opposite directions, after quilting the fabric was really distorted and bumpy. I'm sorry that I didn't get a picture of this! I was worried that I would have to throw away what I had done and start over again. But I ironed the fabric from both sides with a lot of steam and it flattened out really well. The construction of this bag is pretty straightforward, but the shape of the bag did make it difficult to get everything in the right position under the needle. This was especially true when sewing around the ends of the zipper, which were right next to the back corners of the lid. When sewing zippers on a bag, you generally have to zipper pull when sewing near it because there's not enough room for the zipper pull next to the sewing machine needle. For most bags, you can just leave the needle down in the fabric to hold the bag in place, raise the presser foot and then slide the zipper pull past the presser foot. With the corner next to the zipper ends, I had to instead pull the bag out from under the presser foot and cut the threads, then move the zipper pull. Then I could start sewing again at the point where I had stopped. That worked just fine, it just isn't quite as neat as a continuous sewing line.

I also was able to finish adding the stars round to my current rosette for my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. 

La Passacaglia

I also took out the papers from the inner shapes and ironed everything. I like to iron the seam allowances for each unit back into their original positions since they get folded back sometimes when I'm stitching. I also like to iron the papers after I take them out so they are nice and flat so I can reuse them. I still have several more rounds to add to this rosette. With how bright this center is, my next round will be a green or blue to calm it down a bit.

Nancy