Battle of the Bag

So, I'm still working on samples for the Minnesota Roadshow. One of the items is "Lynne's Tote" by Terri Atkinson from her book "Let's Do Lunch". The first steps are to piece the bag and then quilt it along with a strip for handles and a square for the pocket. Since there were multiple pieces, I thought it would be easier to quilt on my sewing machine. I haven't quilted on my Pfaff in ages and this project demanded free-motion quilting.

One of my friends was teaching a class today at the shop so I decided to run up there early to use the big ironing board to fuse-baste the project. I chit-chatted with Sarah and her students for a while (completely stalling from the task at hand) and returned home to begin.

I stitched the edges of everything down and then ironed on a couple of scrap pieces to warm up. Moved on to the handle rectangle. UGH! This is HARD and it's ugly! Thank goodness the handle pieces are cut down to 1-1/4" strips. The hardest part for me is I don't know where to put my hands. Everything feels awkward and jerky.


So I decided to go back to the shop and look at the machine quilting books. The girls were surprised to see me again. I browsed through the books and NONE of them talk about hand position except Diane Gaudynski's. And she talks about manipulating BIG quilts. Perhaps some machine quilting gloves will help.

I came back home and just started on the body of the bag, stopping more often to try to re-position my hands. The gloves DID help. Problem is I think the bed of my machine is too high and I kept getting cramps in between my shoulders. What would have taken me 15 minutes to quilt on the longarm took about 3 hours. But I did it - and I finished the bag. Nothing like taking all day to do it!

The fabrics are from Anna Maria Horner's "Garden Party" line. Aren't they luscious?