Quilted Delights: It's in the Bag Blog Hop!

Welcome! Today I'm showing off the Ultimate Travel Bag 2.0 for the "It's in the Bag!" Blog Hop.

For this hop, Island Batik Ambassadors were asked to pick a pattern from byAnnie.com and Annie generously sent the pattern along with all the extra items we needed to make the bag.

Fabric was provided by Island Batik from their newest fabric lines. I used three prints from the Island Batik fabric line called Limerick, a signature line by Raija Salomaa of Quilters’ Treasure Chest.

For the outside I used the purplish blueish Celtic knot print. To brighten up the inside, I choose the bright green Celtic knot print. The dots in blue turned out to be perfect print for the coordinating handles and pockets.

You can find Limerick in these shops:

Lori's Country Cottage, AB CANADA

Ocean Quilts, CA

Quilter's Dream, CO

Close To Home-Southington, CT

Jambearies Quilt Co, FL

Calico Cat, HI

Red Roxy Quilt Co, IA

Treasured Quilting, IA

Hancocks of Paducah, KY

Laural's Fabrics and More, LLC, MN

Quilt Haven On Main, MN

KC Maker Studio & Fabrics, MO

Cary Quilting Co, NC

Sierra Patchworks, NV

Creekside Quilts, OR

Quilter's Cove, OR

Connie's Collectibles, PA

Quilting Divas. WI

The Sewing Basket, WI

Falky's Treasures. WY

Lickety Stitch Quilts, WY

Sew Ewe Quilt Shop, WY

I had some helpers with this project right from the beginning. Boonky had to test out the quality of the fabric before I cut into it,

While Carl was in charge of cutting accuracy.

Avi just wanted to play with the elastic.

I love byAnnie's patterns, they are very thorough with clear easy instructions and the labels provided in the pattern make it super easy to know what piece you need when putting everything together, particularly when there are a lot of pieces with similar sizes.

The Soft and Stable that goes inside the bag is fantastic. It helps the bag stand up all on its own and as you can see above, creates nice soft bag parts for sleeping on.

For me, the most intimidating part of making the bag is the last few steps: attaching the front and back to the side unit and adding the inside binding. Mainly because there are so many layers to get through, including some with zippers, and I have to sew through it three times: once to attach everything, once to add the binding, and once to tack the binding down.

I took it slow as suggested in the Add on Video and to my surprise, it actually wasn't as stressful this time around compared to when I made my first By Annie bags. Perhaps I knew what was coming and mentally braced myself, or perhaps I have just gotten better at the technique after doing it several times.

It also helped that my Schmetz Microtex needle handled it like a champ. I didn't even come close to breaking the needle.

I took the bag down town Lake City for a photo shoot.

I wasn't sure which setting was my favorite, so I added them all.

Downtown Lake City has several murals and some lovely decorated alley ways that lead from parking lots to Main Street. Perfect for photo shoots.

The bag was fun to make from start to finish.

I will definitely be taking this one with me for our Thanksgiving trip.

There is plenty of room inside for a long weekend and I like the mesh pockets to help keep thing separated.

The pattern gives instructions to use fabric for these inside pockets, but I like the stretchy see through mesh.

My neighbor has been enjoying the hop and has hinted that she needs a By Annie bag of her own. I will have to ask her which one is her favorite when the hop is over.

Be sure to check out Emily of The Darling Dogwood and Maryellen of Mary Mack Made Mine to see what bags they made with this fabric line!

And last but not least, Island Batik is giving away two fat quarter bundles and one of them is Limerick! You can enter using the Rafflecopter below. Visit the Island Batik blog post for more details.