Sunday, August 25, 2013

Not Your Mother's Shopping Bag

I belong to a quilt guild here in California, and our guild has a group of ladies who make quilts and other items for homeless or otherwise needy people. We also make wheelchair and walker bags, winter neck scarves, knitted hats for newborns, and more. It's a fun group of really nice ladies, and a few gents.

Recently the leader of our Philanthropy group issued a challenge to the group to decorate some reusable shopping bags that had printing on the sides. The challenge was to cover the printing, thereby decorating the bags. They will be voted on for the favorite, and I think there may be a small prize for the winner.

The bags are to be finished by October, when the voting will take place. This is my bag. The tiny ribbon bow is just being auditioned to see how it works, but I think I may have decided against it. Still, it needs something more. Someone has suggested big yellow buttons at the base of the handles, and that may be what I end up with. We'll see.

As I was working on the hexagon flowers, it reminded me of the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that I have been working on for a couple of months now. And I began to wonder, would this folded technique make a nice quilt? Batting could be inserted before folding, creating a quilt-as-you-go quilt. It would certainly be textured! My only concern would be to wonder if the nice neat folds would remain so when it is washed.