Trying Something New!

I like ’em big or small, slim or chunky, stiff or slouchy, and any colour at all….basically to sum it up……I like ’em all! I’m talking about bags of course, I’m a fan of them all!

I love to make almost all of them too, I’m up for almost any challenge and I honestly never get tired of making them! I also love to use different types of fabrics to make them too, such as cotton, vinyl, upholstery fabrics, suede, silk….anything really! There was one I had never tried before though,  and I never really thought I would either, and that was….minky!

Now I love minky as much as most, and I’m always excited when I get to make a blanket with it, or whatever….but a bag? Nope, never imagined I would be doing that….but that’s exactly what ended up happening, eventually  even though that was my initial idea!

I had seen some posts in the I Love Cuddle Facebook group about using the Shannon Fabrics Quilting Cuddle minky to applique words on sweatshirts and that intrigued me. I’ve done applique before in a couple of projects and I really enjoyed it, and now that I’m thinking about it, in one of those projects, I appliqued with minky!

So, with this project in mind, I went about choosing a Quilting Cuddle minky print that I thought would look fun in an applique, which was hard to narrow down because there’s lots of fun ones to choose from! Ultimately I decided to go with Rainbow Pink Wanderlust, the waves of all those bright and  vibrant colours seemed perfect!

With the fabric purchased, now I needed to figure out what word I would put on my sweater, which I would also have to go buy! I couldn’t really seem to settle on a word, I thought maybe Pug Mama or Sewist, both would be fine but I wasn’t 100% sold on either.

So what to do? Should I just pick one of the words and just get on with it? Orrrrrrr, and here’s where one of those “ah ha” moments occurred….orrrr should I just do what I know and enjoy making the most…a bag?!?!?!?

Yes, it was decided, a bag is what I shall make and I already knew exactly which one! While doing a recent cleaning of the cupboard in my sewing room, I found a couple of sets of Internal Wire Frames from Emmaline Bags that are used in their free pattern, The Retreat Bag and I thought I should make one, or two soon! It’s a super fun pattern, and you can even make it without the frames if you don’t have them, but I really like it with them, and they’re very reasonably priced!

When I previously used Quilting Cuddle for a project, I did not interface it and I really regretted it. I’m not in agreeance with Shannon Fabrics when they say that it has “minimal stretch” so I knew that I would be interfacing it as suggested in the pattern, with a woven and a fleece interfacing. I used my new favourite Behind the Seams Fuse Flex and my always favourite fleece, Pellon Thermolam. I applied the Fuse Flex to the back of the cuddle with no problems at all, and once that was applied, I find the minky is very manageable!

I would like to point out something that is very critical when using a fabric that has a nap, like minky does. When you’re cutting out your pattern pieces, you want to make sure the nap is going the same direction for all the pieces. In my case, I wanted the nap to go down towards the bottom of the bag so I’m forever “petting” the fabric to make sure it is before I cut the pieces!

Once my pieces were interfaced and cut, I followed the pattern exactly because it’s perfect just the way it is in my opinion! Oops, that’s kind of not true, the only thing I did differently was that I only made one interior slip pocket instead of the suggested 2 lol! I had no problems with the minky at all, it was no different than using any other fabric I would typically use! It’s also a pretty quick pattern so before you know it, you’ve got yourself the cutest little bag that you can use for so many things!

So…you wanna see the cuteness?!?

There she is in all her glory, sitting so pretty atop all her coordinating friends lol! And can we talk about how cute that roller skate zipper pull is for a second lol? I received it as a freebie when I previously placed an order with Zipper Valley and I thought it was so cute but wasn’t sure when I’d ever use it. The more I looked at this minky, the more I was getting “groovy” vibes from it so a roller skate seemed very fitting in my mind lol! I went with a nice bright lime green polka dot cotton from my collection (aka stash!) for the lining for even more fun!

I’m glad I gave this project a go, it turned out super cute and even though I don’t ever see myself making a larger minky bag that I would carry as a purse or a duffle bag, I’ve learned to never say never lol!

Thanks so much for reading along with my latest project journey, I hope you know how much I appreciate you being here! I hope you’ve had an amazing week, and as always, feel free to share something fun or exciting, or anything at all from your week, I’d love to hear about it!

Ta ta for now friends!

Shawna