Ruffle Bag

Well i have been wanting to sew lately, but unfortunately my sewing machine has been nothing but trouble.  So the Mr. worked last night on it for a couple hours trying to get it to work and he throw his hands up and said "It needs to go to a shop or something".  Well i was bummed because when I'm in the mood to do something I want to do it now.  So this morning i made a few calls and it seems that everyone else is having troubles with there machine or they just live to far away.  But my best husband in the world bought me a new machine today thanks to his plasma donation card. Got to love Plasma! I don't need a fancy machine i just need one i can operate and not going to break every time i use it.

So I picked up a plain large canvas bag from walmart for like $5.00. And then headed to Hancock Fabric for the Columbus Day Sale on fabric. I had a cart load of fabric that i had to decide between. Did I mention I love fabric stores! Then I dashed home to play with my new machine. To be honest I have never had good luck on make ruffles, so i did a little research thanks to google I planned my attack.

I ended up buying 4 different colors of fabric, 1/2 yard each.

Then I cut my fabric for the ruffles about 4 1/2 inches wide.

Take notes I'm going to give you my secret on making my ruffles

• Set your tension on the highest number it will go. Mine is 9
• Then look for the straight line symbol that has a little space between each stitch. 
• Then start sewing and you will start to see it puckering and that is a ruffle. I sewed my 1 inch from the edge
• Leave a good amount of string on both ends and don't back stitch.

I did 4 colors for my bag but you can do one or less or whatever you want. The colors are way cuter in person.

After i made my ruffles i grabbed a needle and some thread and hand sewed my ruffles onto my bag. I bet you can do glue but I'm super tough on stuff so i need a good heavy duty stitch.  I started with just putting ruffles on the front of the bag but thought it would be cute to go all the way around. Which almost took the whole 1/2 yard for each color.

Then I put the flower on the top by making a long ruffle strip about 2 inches wide, and just curling it around and around to form it into a flower shape.  Then I hand sewed the layers each time around with a couple stitches.  Hot glued the button on the middle and hand sewed it to the bag.

I think this is going to be my library bag or whatever I need for the moment. It seems like when your a mom you are always looking for a bag for something you have to carry around.