'Tote'ally useful bag! {with JOFY stencils and stamps by Jo Firth-Young}

Hi everyone, Jo here with a sewing project this month - its lovely to make something pretty and useful... and good for the environment too - this bag I've decorated will be great for shopping trips (no more need for plastic bags!).

I wanted to use my flower stencil PS009 in a really simple way (another 'less is more', 'clean & simple' project) - using it as a template for applique shapes.

PS009

I teamed the stencil with the sketched flower image from JOFY25 which is designed to stamp over the top of the stencil flowers.

JOFY25

The bag I used is a simple ready-made calico bag measuring just over 40x40cm. I raided my fabric stash and selected a red cotton with white spots - a nice bold colour that would great against the calico bag.

I used Bondaweb to attach the flowers to the bag - this is a really good product that melts when ironed and fuses/bonds fabrics together.  First the Bondaweb is ironed onto the reverse of the fabric.

I used the solid flower from the 4 options on the stencil and drew around the shape with a fabric pen (the ink fades after a period of time/in daylight) & on the reverse of the fabric (on top of the Bondaweb) so that the edges would be clean. I also flipped the stencil so the flowers changed 'direction'.

I cut out the flowers & played around with laying them on the bag finally deciding on the placement below - this would leave space for other embellishments.  (NB - I only decorate one side of bags like this because I don't want embellishments to catch on my clothes and possibly spoil the bag or my clothes)

I removed the backing from the Bondaweb and ironed the flowers in place (temperature depends on the fabric being used - no steam).

At this point I decided to unpick and open up one side of the bag - this makes it much easier to sew the detail using my sewing machine, but if you would rather hand sew detail onto the bag you wouldn't need to unpick anything.

I used Archival ink for the stamping - I find that it is 'safe' and 'permanent' on fabric when it is ironed to 'set' the ink.  I liked the flowers like this - really striking but then I decide the bag needed more...

... and so I stamped lots more sketched flowers...

I chose yellow cotton to add detail to the centre of the flowers - if you don't have a sewing machine you could add detail using hand stitched running stitches.

The sketched flowers looked a bit plain so I added simple lines of yellow stitching to these too.

I sewed the bag up, adding a line of zig-zag stitching around the top to coordinate with the red flowers.

Nope, still not 'finished'!.... hmmm ... BUTTONS!  of course, the flower centres need button centres... I hand sewed these on because I like the look of the tied ends of cotton.

Here's the finished bag again.  

I had a lot of fun making this and its inspired me to make some more - great for christmas presents don't you think??
I hope its inspired you too - use your stencils as a template for applique - and by using Bondaweb, or iron-on interfacing its really quite simple.

Take care

Jo

A huge thanks to Jo from PaperArtsy HQ. I LOVE bags, and I love red, Perfect combination. Everyone should make one of these, let's save the planet, one bag at a time!

We would love you to join in with our monthly challenge. If you are inspired by any of this month's guests who have blogged between Oct 1st 2014 and Oct 31^st 2014 then join in and link up your creativity HERE. You will go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. You need to add your link by 19:00 (London time) Oct 31st 2014