Look at these cute little bags from the
Runaround Bag pattern by
Lazy Girl Designs. They have a lined interior, a back pocket, a zip closure, and are 7" x 9". As the pattern says, "A great little purse to
runaround with." I saw one made by guildster Sara Hochhauser in a terrific fly fishing fabric. At a fabric swap during the fall retreat of the
Chicago Modern Quilt Guild I got this fabulous black and red Oriental fabric from guildster Debbie Bookman and decided to use it for the trial run for this pattern. Except for the strap being a bit too short, I do like this.
The black pocket on the back needs something - some quilting? something. Using a great fabric with green trees and a coarsely woven fabric (on loan from Eileen), I created two more, trying to figure out where the feature fabric should go and what should be plain, and missed the mark on both. The bags are nice. But not great. The straight-line quilting on the green bags helps a lot to make the bag interesting. Of course it does. I'm a quilter. I like texture. Of course I know this. But somehow I forget something this basic when making a new pattern.
So - using my handy-dandy,never-ending supply of scraps - I began doing some improvisational foundation piecing to create the bag front. And then another improvisation piece for the pocket. And I love the result. This bag is the keeper! When I returned the rest of Eileen's fabrics to her, I gave her her choice of bags - she chose the one with the quilting. Still need to create some nify zipper pulls for these. Guess Eileen will have to do her own.
This pattern is fat-quarter friendly and just needs 2.
