One of My Favorite Embroidery Handbags

Over the past year, I have fallen in love with machine embroidery, in addition to quilting. When my friend gifted me her embroidery machine, I thought all I could do was make quilt labels or T-shirts. Little did I know that I would find Sweet Pea Embroidery and all their beautiful patterns! They have in-the-hoop patterns (entirely made in the hoop) and patterns you finish with your sewing machine.

BAGS!!

I have never been a shoe person, but I have always loved bags. All types of bags, big, small, and everything in between, too! When I realized I could make professional looking handbags, like these, all with my embroidery machine and the help of Sweet Pea Embroidery, I was HOOKED!!

I’ve even been able to figure out, based on previous patterns I’ve purchased from them, how to turn their quilt patterns into bags like this one!

Birthday Present

My friend’s 50th birthday was coming up, and as she is a teacher, I thought this bag would be perfect for her. Her birthday is in September, but school starts here in August, so I gifted it to her a month early.

First, I decided which book names to use on the bag. I went with some of the ones in the original pattern, but I knew I wanted to add more since I would be making the same book pattern more than once on each side of the bag.

I looked up some classic book titles and made the lettering using Inkscape‘s Inkstitch extension. It includes some fonts and suggests how small you can make them. I’ll admit I made them smaller than recommended, and they turned out fine. I also used SewWhat Pro to help add the lettering to the design file. SewWhat Pro is great to add, tweak, or change embroidery patterns before I load them onto the machine.

I used a mixture of marine vinyl and fabric for the books. Afterward, I learned that if I placed some water soluble topper style stabilizer on the vinyl, the stitches wouldn’t sink in so deeply. I haven’t tried that yet, as I haven’t made this bag again, but I will try it next time.

The vase is made with mylar to make it really appear like glass.

I found this adorable fabric at Joann’s and used it for the lining. It matched the theme of the bag so well.

The Birthday Girl

Here’s my friend, Gretchen, who insisted we take a photo of the bag together! She’s another amazing friend who has been highly supportive and helped me to express my creativity through embroidery and quilting!