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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Quaker Quarterly Exchange XV arrived in Spain!

I can finally show pics of the piece I stitched for my first-ever exchange! Much to my relief, my Quaker Christmas treat bag arrived at Mercedes' house in Spain.

This exchange was conducted through the Legacy Embroiderers Guild forums. The pieces for this exchange were to be stitched in Christmas colors: red, green, and white. My medallion was chosen with these in mind. I thought the tulips and outer stars looked a bit like poinsettias, the green triangles like Christmas trees, and the center star like a snowflake, so I stitched all of these in the appropriate colors. I couldn't resist adding both Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad to celebrate our two cultures.

On the back, I stitched our initials.

As I was stitching, the fabric seemed pretty flimsy for a bag. I wanted to make the bag a bit more substantial, so I found some burgundy velvet at a local fabric store. Never having lined a bag before, I put it together (by hand) in entirely reverse order*. I caught the selvage of the velvet in the top hemstitch first, then sewed the lining together up the back and across the bottom. Pulling the lining and linen apart, I stitched the linen from top to bottom, flipping the lining back in only as I reached the top. You can see my inexpert join on the top inside of the seam. Then, I stitched the bottom of the linen using a blind double-running stitch.

*(Apparently most bags are sewn by creating separate bags of shell and lining, then joining them at the top. Who knew? I think I would have had trouble with the top hemstitch if I had done this!)





I had also hemstitched the drawstring area on both top and bottom. The cording is made of several strands of #12 pearl cotton.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Quite lovely and really appropriate colors. Well done, especially the Christmas wishes in both languages. We are going to Spain in October for the first time and I just was reading a travel book to start to become familiar with the country.

Karoline said...

Gorgeous exchange, congratulations

Stitcher S said...

What a beautiful little bag. Mercedes must have been thrilled to receive it!

Anonymous said...

I think your bag looks terrific! Nice work!

Kathy A. said...

Hi - I lost your blog when my computer had a meltdown. We are now up and running again and I was able to find you. I love that bag that you made - lined and all - how beautiful. We are home in Ottawa at the moment babysitting the grandkids in the snow and cold. I will be happy to go back to AZ next week.