When I was making the first Pay it Forward gift, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. There were a couple of things I had in mind for each person, and I'd planned to do a personalized variation for each winner.
But I was experimenting with mini-blocks for a block swap I'm part of, and I realized after I'd made the first one, that they were the colours that Kathryn had picked as her favourite colours. So, I decided to make three more (all my scraps in those colours would allow); but once done, I didn't know what to do with them. And then it came to me - make a tote bag.
Having made the tote bag for her, I then had to make another one for winner number two. She had listed teal, aqua, purple and orange as her favourite colours and I had some lovely teals in fabrics ranging from velvets to silk, some purple satin and an aqua/violet/teal print I had picked up at the Textile Museum sale, so I happily went to town.
Crystal's a young woman, so I wanted to make young woman's bag. It was hard, because I didn't know what her lifestyle is like or what kind of work she does, but I finally just decided to make one to my aesthetic, using her colours and hope that she liked it too. (It was extremely popular with my co-workers!)
I had to fiddle a lot with this one - again, I made it with no pattern, and I tried a different technique from Kathryn's which went so badly I had to essentially make the bag again, but I'm really pleased with it in the end, because it's the first time I tried the honeycomb quilting and it turned out really well!
That's a good look at the quilting on the inside of the bag (before I sewed on the binding strips to cover the seams). Neat, huh?
And I also tried making my first little pocket for a cellphone or Ipod
and it turned out well too. So, all in all, I was really happy with experiment number 2.
Thanks Crystal, for being my guinea pig, and thanks for joining in on Pay It Forward!
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I really do love it! It's very well made and, most of all, it's beautiful! Thanks again!
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