Coming Together

I think I'm just about finished with my quilted bag - and I've still been grinning away with every step.

I did end up making bias tape for the binding to cover the raw outer edges of the bag.

I went with my usual machine stitch application (stitching on then folding over), which meant feeding the bag through twice. I worried it would be difficult, but compared to attaching the side panels (pink) to the edges (brown), it was actually fairly straight forward and only very slightly more difficult than putting binding on a quilt.

I remembered to take a slightly better picture of the kind of quilting I applied to the side panels.

 

Even though it doesn't show much of the whole, I love this picture of the details - both the binding on the outer edges and the clean fold on the side panel, and a little bit of the diamond-ish quilting from the aqua floral side. Okay, it also shows the continuing battle with bobbin tension (I met with a Janome expert who found a little problem with the machine, but said that overall my particular machine is probably just a little finicky and needs a slightly higher tension setting than standard. Sigh.)

After the binding was added, I had a fairly finished bag, ready for handles. I have a feeling this is going to be the most difficult part.

I debated adding the handles after the quilting but before much else. That might have made adding the binding a little more challenging, so I didn't. I may yet regret that...