Church Bags

Once upon a time, the most magical sewing lady in the world approached me and asked me if I could recreate a favorite crocheted hat of her daughter's that was getting to be too small in exchange for some magical sewn project of hers.

I agreed without hesitation. She sent me the hat, I recreated it and made it bigger, then she in return made me a crochet bag for all of my yarn mess that I still oggle over whenever I pull it out. Which is daily, by the way. Since then, "trading" projects has been something of an excitement for me. Over Christmas we exchanged a crocheted headband earwarmer with flowers on it for a church bag for Chloe- I had seen it once on her blog forever ago for her little ones and desired it greatly, so trade we did. 

 ADORABLE, right?? And just perfect for church. She loves the thing and takes it with her everywhere she goes in Primary.
SO...I really wanted to have one of these for Linus as well, and while I would trust Katie with my life to make another one for Linus, I examined this bag closely and thought..."I could make this!".
Now, I am no magical sewing lady. No, not in the slightest. I have attempted a few sewing projects in my day, and by sewing projects I mean curtains. Easy, straight stitching curtains, right? The first set of curtains I made are still hanging in our bedroom and after I made them (combining interior decorating fabric with darkening material, which is the devil to sew in any shape or fashion), there were so many mistakes I vowed never to make curtains again. Unfortunately I had already purchased fabric with my mother in law to make another set of curtains for a large, cold window in our recreation room. And it sat in my mother in laws basement after we bought it.  FOUR YEARS LATER, when we had news that we would have a large amount of family out here for Christmas after the announcement of Amber's wedding, Craig timidly approached me and asked if it would be possible to make another set of curtains with that fabric sitting all lonely for so long for the window so it wouldn't look so bare. I bucked up and said yes...but only because I paid way more for that lonely fabric than I should have and I was too stubborn to spend any more money on that window.
The second attempt was more encouraging. Mostly because it didn't involve devil darkening material.

But sewing for fun? Could I do it? Could I embrace it? Could I make it my own?
SHAH!

Here is Linus's bag. Couple of notes: lots of mistakes. Not near as good as Katie's, but a successful first attempt I'd say.

 See this beautiful quilting here below? Katie gave me a huge tip and said that pre-quilted fabric would save me a lot of hair-pulling. It looks so tidy and neat, how could I say no??

 Except I had to. Because the pre-quilted fabric that they had at Joann's was not real masculine. And unfortunately I decided to browse around before I chose the least feminine pre-quilted fabric to use... and then Linus about dropped dead when he saw the dinosaur fabric. And I just couldn't deny him his boyish dinosaur rights. Which meant I had to attempt the impossible: machine quilting.
Then a few weeks ago I stumbled across someone's pinterest post about a quick and easy quilt where the woman had just stitched zig-zags across the fabric. I can totally do that. And I totally did because I am not good at "perfect", plus I have zero patience for anything I can't just do the first time I try. Who wants to deal with practicing?? Really.
So here are my cop-out, imperfect zig zags.

 And the point is Linus loves it and stuffed it full of every "Friend" magazine, coloring book, and colored pencil he could find in the house. That's really all that matters I guess. :-)

 Katie got this pattern here:
Art Case Tutorial
Here is the "easy" zig zag quilt I was talking about. Different Katie.
Zig Zag quilt