Spring Sling Bag

I have my first finish of the 2026 WIPS-B-GONE challenge! Monday night, I finished my Spring Sling crossbody bag and I love, love, love how it turned out!

I started the bag back in January, after buying the pattern and the hardware from Emmaline Bags during their Black Friday sale last year. The pattern is by Janelle MacKay, of Emmaline Bags, and is really well written, perfect for bag-making novices like me 😊 

I had debated what bag to make for at least a year before choosing the Spring Sling. I made a Necessary Clutch Wallet (NCW) back in 2018 (that pattern is also by Janelle MacKay), and I've been using that as my purse ever since. As you can imagine, it's looking a little worn and tattered now! I don't carry much, so I've always preferred a small purse and when I made the NCW, the phone I had at the time fit in it. When I upgraded my phone a couple years later, though, it was too big. Then I reached the age where I needed reading glasses, and a glasses case definitely couldn't fit in, either. That meant I needed a larger bag this time around. I will confess, even with the finished dimensions of the bag in the description, it's a bit bigger than I was expecting 😆 I am terrible at envisioning how big something will be based on the dimensions! I am really happy with the size, though, so it's all good.

All the fabric came from my stash and all the pieces for the accent panel on the front came from my scrap bins. Without intending to, I used the same mottled black for the exterior of the bag as I did for the NCW. I guess it's a case of 'I like what I like'!

I stalled with making the bag in January when it was time to start installing the hardware and to decide how to quilt the exterior of the bag. When WIPS-B-GONE started, I decided I had put it off long enough and needed to just get it done. The first piece of hardware to install was the turning lock, which I had also done on the NCW, but that was 8 years ago and I remembered nothing about doing it, so that was no help this time around. Just like back then, I found it was easier than I expected. Will I remember that next time I have to install some bit of hardware, I wonder?

A couple of months ago, I decided I'd use the loop-and-flower meander to quilt the bag, but I couldn't decide what colour thread to use. Black, so it blended in and I just got the texture? Teal? Purple? Pink? After spooling out some of each colour, I decided to go with the bright pink (Aurifil 2530) and I'm so glad I did. I love that the quilting is so prominent!

No, it's not perfect, some of those flowers are pretty wonky, to be honest, but that's the way my quilting always is - perfectly imperfect.

Making the zipper pocket was surprisingly easy and it looks so professional! You'd almost think I knew what I was doing, but it was definitely all because the instructions are so well done.

Cutting into the quilted panel at this point to add the rest of the hardware was a little nerve-wracking, but it went okay, with only some minor hiccups. When I was adding the first grommet, where the straps go through, the pattern said to put a little glue in the pieces and my glue came out too fast and I ended up making a mess. Not to mention I put the first one on with the back on the outside of the bag, but thankfully I realized my mistake before fully attaching it. Did I mention the hardware makes me nervous? 😆

Adding the side gusset pieces was a bit of an adventure.

 At this point, there are a lot of layers and the pattern specifies to use a strong needle, so I dug out my pack of denim needles. With that in place, and using my walking foot, my Janome 6700 had no issue with all the layers. The adventure part came in trying to maneuver around the curve at the bottom of the bag. Let's just say the stitching isn't at all straight and it's a very good thing it is hidden inside the binding!

I had planned to use the exterior fabric for the bias binding, too, but didn't have nearly enough. I didn't have any solid black, either, and none of the black prints I have were big enough. Then I noticed a metallic print I've had for years and remembered that it's solid on the back, so I used that with the 'wrong' side out. As a little bonus, there are flecks of silver that show through the binding, though they don't show up in the pictures.

The binding is sewn onto the lining of the bag by machine, then hand stitched to the exterior. I finished that Monday evening, then left the bag standing on the kitchen counter overnight. Yesterday morning I looked at it and thought, "I bet I could fit a book in there." I was right! Will I be in the habit of carrying a hardcover book in my purse? Probably not, but it's nice to know I can if I want to!

Have you read the children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"? My version is "if a quilter makes a new purse...she's gonna need to make a new wallet, too" 😆 The Necessary Clutch Wallet has card slots built in, so I haven't needed a separate card holder for my cards. The Spring Sling bag doesn't have those, so now I need to make a card holder, but haven't found the right pattern yet. In the meantime, the NCW fits inside the Spring Sling, so I'm still using that. As you can see from this picture with the NCW and my glasses case in the front part of the bag, there's a lot of room in there!

I don't think I'll be a regular bag-maker, but I am thrilled with this one and excited to finally be able to using it 😊

Sea Glass Art Sewing Machine Mini Quilt

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Welcome back for another TGIFF party 😊 As with my other TGIFF posts this month, I'm sharing a quilt I actually finished months ago, but this time it's not because I've been slack about the posting. I made this mini quilt while I recorded a workshop teaching how to make it for The Conquer Your Fabric Scraps summit happening in November. Registration has just opened for that, so now I can share the quilt. 

So, without further ado, here's my Sea Glass Art Sewing Machine mini quilt. This little quilt was so much fun to make and keeping it secret has been hard!

I used a picture of one of my Singer treadle sewing machines as the basis for the outline and embroidered it with a backstitch using Aurifil 12 wt thread. Then I had so much fun filling it with small appliqué sea glass-like pieces. It's like putting together a puzzle of fabric pieces.

Some of the pieces are tiny! I love it!

Then it was time for the quilting. I quilted one section at a time, starting by quilting just inside the embroidery and then quilted around each sea glass piece a couple of times. I didn't even try to make the two rounds of stitching overlap when going around the sea glass pieces. I know I'd never be able to do that perfectly, so I don't even try and the wobbles end of looking intentional since they're so consistent. Or that's what I tell myself anyway 😆 I also just traveled through the background from one piece to another. I definitely wasn't stopping and starting again for every single piece, and the white thread just blends into the white background, so it's not noticeable.

Once all of the sections were quilted, I quilted around the outside of the sewing machine just outside the embroidery and again about ⅛" away. I finished it off by quilting a loop and heart meander all over the background.

The back looks pretty subtle, with white thread on the white fabric, but I still love it. And I remembered to add the triangles to the corners for hanging it! Of course, I finished this in July and it's still lying on the bed in the sewing room rather than hung on the wall beside the bed, but it'll get put up eventually.

I don't think I've ever used a solid white binding before, but I didn't want any frame around the mini distracting from the sewing machine. Since it's a mini quilt that I plan to hang, I figure the white binding won't get dirty like it would on a quilt that was being used.

Of course, a quilt made with sea glass appliqué required a beach photo shoot! These were taken in July, though, not this week. It has been cool and windy here the past few days, so much less conducive to quilty photo shoots at the beach.

This beach always has sea glass. This particular day, I only found brown pieces, but there are usually white and green pieces, too. I've also found blue pieces there and even found a couple of lavender pieces.

And here's me, holding my Sea Glass Art Sewing Machine and squinting into the sun 😆

If you want to make your own Sea Glass Art Sewing Machine, come join us for the Conquer Your Fabric Scraps summit, happening November 9-13. It's a free summit with more than 20 teachers sharing tips, strategies, and workshops focused on helping you make the most of your scraps. Claim your free ticket to the summit here.

That's my recent(ish) finish 😊 What have you finished lately? Link it up below and then visit some of the other links to celebrate their finishes with them.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

In Focus Mini Quilt

Sometimes (often, if I'm being honest) I need a deadline to get things done, even when it's something I want to do. Case in point - hosting TGIFF again this week is exactly the motivation I needed to share another one of the quilts I've finished in the past few months. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce my In Focus mini quilt.

In Focus was the Mini of the Month pattern for Stash Artists members in July. The pattern is available to members, including new members, along with the whole Stash Artists pattern library, so come join us if you'd like to make your own In Focus mini quilt.

I've said before that I have a hard time naming my quilts, but this one was relatively easy. Have you ever taken a picture with a DSLR camera set on manual, where you had to twist the lens to focus the picture? Can you remember the lines that were there when you looked in the viewfinder, showing where the camera was focusing? That's what this mini quilt design makes me think of, and what inspired the name.

In Focus was fun to piece because there aren't a lot of pieces and there are no places where the seams have to match up! Talk about a relaxing sew! 

Once the piecing was done, it was time to play with the quilting 😊 I started with the big flower in the center square. As always, my flower petals are uneven - I don't think any two of them are the same - but it all works in the end. I added short, wiggly lines going into each petal, to give the petals a little extra dimension, and pebbles in the flower center. To finish off the center square, I echo quilted around the outside of the flower, using the edge of my free motion foot as a guide, and then filled in the rest of the square with a dense loopy meander.

The inner 'corners' got a feather-like motif, with a dense stipple in the small spaces around them. The outer corners got wishbones, which is probably my favourite design to quilt in rectangular spaces like this. Don't look too closely at the wishbones in the corner, though. I definitely need to practice turning corners with this design!

The teal background is quilted with a somewhat less dense loopy meander. With all the quilting, and the teal thread for quilting the background, the back looks fabulous!

I try to remember to add triangles to the corners of the back of my mini quilts for hanging them, but I'm only successful about half the time. In Focus was not one of those times. I didn't even realize I hadn't thought of them until I was looking at the pictures. Sigh. I did remember my label, though!

I can't believe I'm almost at the end of the Mini of the Month pattern series in Stash Artists. Where has the year gone? That being said, I am kind of looking forward to a more relaxed pace next year, when I won't be making and writing the pattern for a new mini quilt every month 😅

That's my (finally blogged) finish for this week. What have you finished lately? Or not so lately, as the case may be... Link it up below and be sure to visit some of the other links to admire their finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter