Linen Tote Bag and a mission accomplished

Before I start today I must point out that I'm experiencing problems commenting on a few, not all, of your blogs, so if you feel I haven't visited for a while, rest assured I have. I'm working myself up to 'Blogger help' but I'm not quite in the right frame of mind to tackle it yet.

Not too long ago I was contacted by a lovely lady querying if I could make a bag for her. The brief was ('should I choose to accept it' - that's the Mission Impossible bit) for it to be a tote'ish style bag, with a gusset, that had to stand up on it's own as she intended to use it to house her knitting bits. It was a bag that was to travel around alot so it needed to work hard and be able to contain all of the essentials necessary for a work in progress. She wanted the bag to be wide enough to accomodate her knitting needles when they were feeling in need of a lie down and it was to incorporate some of my applique work.

I love these oppportunities a) because it is a customer with a genuine need  and b) it really makes me think about a project.  I was thrilled that she felt she could approach me.

The biggest challenge I faced was how to make it stand up and for this I used fusible fleece for the first time. I got it from here, an amazing little website packed full of useful hints and tips for bag makers as well as mountains of supplies. Fusible fleece offers support to a project whilst retaining a certain 'slouchiness' and I used it with a medium weight interfacing, it seemed to do the trick.

But before I go galloping on ahead,  let me draw your attention to the applique.



'My little house' - ahhhhh





If you've been following for a while you'll remember that this 'little house' started it's life here since then it has gone on to appear here and here each time being slightly adapted, it even appears in my sidebar. It's one of the very first things I ever made using free motion stitching and I love my 'little house'. Does that sound mad? I'm thinking of using it on lots more things and maybe developing it on a range of items.

Anyway back to the bag.........remember it was to be a 'home for knitting'........

.......with enough room for tired knitting needles to lie down.......

........and it had to have a gusset.

I picked up the red gingham from the front door of the house and used it for the lining. I think this is one of my favourite parts of a project, choosing the colours and deciding how they are going to work together.

The finishing touch, a sweet little sentiment ..........

Now although this is destined to be positioned at the feet of an avid knitter, it looks just as nice hanging from a door.

My customer received her bag a few days ago and is very pleased with it which always makes everything worthwhile and keeps me smiling.
Thank you for sticking with this lengthy post, I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Have a good day, I'm off to make some more needlecases after a man has been to see me about my drains, it already sounds expensive doesn't it?