Summer Essentials Bag :)

Hello friends! A few weeks ago I was asked if I’d be interested in testing a bag pattern for a friend I’ve met through IG that lives in Finland! (Instagram is a crazy thing isn’t it? I have a friend in Finland…) I love her patterns that I’ve sewn with in the past so of course I said yes! She sent me the pattern and I got right to work. I don’t have a tutorial for you, since this is a purchased pattern, and not one of my own. However, I loved this bag so much that I’m excited to tell you all about it and you might want to make one yourself.

I used linen fabric for the main part of the purse and little tiny bits of Liberty fabric for the accents. This pattern called for Flex Foam, which I love sewing with and use a lot in bags. But on this project instead of machine quilting I decided to hand quilt it. I’ve never hand quilted flex foam before but it was a cinch! I used my very favorite water soluble Clover Erasable Marker to mark all my lines. If you have never used this marker before, you need to start. I’ve used so many different markers and this one is my favorite! I’m lost if I don’t have two or three on my sewing table!

The Flex Foam is fusible on one side, so I ironed my fabric to the foam. I use a Clover Sashico Needle to do my quilting when I use embroidery thread as the eye of the needle is large enough for the thread, and the sharp end is perfect for quilting. I also love that the needles are long and you can really get a lot of stitches on one needles length! And it turns out that quilting through the foam was so easy and so fun!

I really love how the hand quilting came out. It might be my favorite part of the bag. One thing about the pattern that I really appreciated was that the quilting lines on the front flap lined up perfectly with the quilting lines on the bag front. You can see that in the middle photo below. This bag is such an awesome size and easily holds a phone, sunglasses, keys and a little coin purse. We are taking our granddaughters on a little road trip next week and I’m super excited to use my bag! It will hold all my essentials.