Amanda Hawkins

Square Bag Tutorial

Supplies
Fabric: 2 pieces 34.5″x 17.5″ – 1 piece 48″x 4″ – 2 pieces 22″x 11 (or scraps for the pocket squares)
Thread & Sewing machine

Personalize it!
All of the sizes can be changed depending on what size you want the bag to be – so nothing has to be exact! The great thing about this bag is that measuring just isn’t that important, don’t tell anyone but I’m a pretty sloppy sewer! I never match the thread to the fabric either and love going back and forth with the thread so that it looks like scribbles!

Directions
To start you’ll need 2 rectangles of fabric 34.5″x17.5″ – one piece will be the outside body and the other will be the inside. Fold one side of the fabric in 12″ – from the unfolded piece measure in 1″ and cut the fabric away on each side (pictured below). This will be the flap of the bag.

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Freehand Sewing

Hello.

Since getting my new Viking sewing machine last fall I’ve been doing lots of ‘free-motion’ sewing… I saw a cute Valentine’s Tutorial a couple of weeks ago by Lucy Kate Crafts and learned about darning feet. I was amazed at the tiny detail she could get with the foot and decided to invest in my own! I’m so glad I did, it’s a million times easier! I was using the foot on the left, with the feed up even (it was too hard to control with the feed down) – now I’m using the darning foot on the right, feed down and it’s so easy.

I went a little crazy on the Gutterman threads at Jo-Ann’s the other day, 50% off though! They have such lovely colors, and I just really like the way the spools look. Perfect for a thread rainbow.

I made a few Monome Cozies (for sale here) too, cursive handwriting is so fun now…

Sewing & Thank You Notes

I made a bag this weekend that turned out so nice! I was inspired by this beautiful bag, by Morelle and followed this tutorial, on ‘Cut Out + Keep.’ I started a ‘make this’ folder and have added in tons of projects and tutorials I found over the weekend online – My mom recently bought me a sewing machine and I’m really starting to love it. I’ll be posting more about it here in the future and maybe make my own tutorial! I’m thinking of creating a notebook/pocket book to go with my DIY Planner template pages.

In other news, we haven’t sent out our wedding thank you’s yet. 2 1/2 months later! I’m sure that’s the hugest wedding faux pas of all time, but I’m hoping since they’re all handmade/stamped and have several 4×6 photos inside it’ll make up for it?! We started this afternoon and finished all of the cards and envelopes & I’m about halfway through all the messages inside, phew!