Quilted Delights: Tools of the Trade Bag - Island Batik Ambassador Monthly Challlenge

For the month of October, Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to make a bag using a ByAnnie pattern.

We got to pick the bag pattern and the fabrics.

I picked Tools of the Trade.

The last time I visited relatives, I brought my cutting mat and fabric to cut out a few projects. I had a container to carry the fabric, but nothing was big enough to carry my cutting mat and larger ruler. As I was trying to bring everything in, I was wishing I had a big bag to fit everything. So I was glad to see the Tools of the Trade pattern as I was perusing the ByAnnie website.

This pattern also comes with an Add On Video that helps with some of the tricker parts, which was very helpful.

I decided to make both sized bags. One for my larger mat and one for my medium size mat. That way I'll be ready for any size carry along project.

ByAnnie generously supplied all the bag materials to create both bags.

I was a little iffy about the tan mesh and zipper, but it actually looked really good next to the inside fabric. ByAnnie suggests sampling different color mesh for your projects and sometimes after you lay it out, the one you weren't think about may end being the best.

For the smaller bag, I used fabrics from the Paradise Palms collection by Kathy Engle.

I love the orange and greens in this fabric line and really love the leaf print I used for the outside of the bag. The shading of the burnt orange and greens look fantastic.

I paired the main print with the sea turtle print for the inside of the bag. I love sea turtles and get excited everytime I see one when I'm out on the water

For the larger bag, I went with Sea Turtles again and used prints from Turtle Cove, a signature collection by Kathy Engle for Kari Nichols of Quilting Renditions.

I used the blue sea turtle print for the outside.

and the lighter leafy print for the inside.

I used a green from each fabric line for the contrast and binding fabrics.

I had the perfect colors in Aurifil thread to match both bags. It was a lot of thread changing to make two bags at the same time, but all the different colors of thread make the bags beautiful.

I used a regular Schmetz 90/14 universal needle to put the whole bag together. It was slow going around some of the bulkier parts, but I didn't break the needle. It got through all the layers just fine.