Bag Making: Patterns

Happy Thursday, how has your week been? Our Annuversary Sale is still happening and so it has been quite busy at the shop. If you haven;t heard, all the yardage in the front room is 30% off for our in store shoppers. There is a minimum 0.3 meter cut to get the discount and if you finish the bolt you get 40% off that piece. This sale continues until June 24th so there is still time to come in and get some new fabric at a great discount. 

Quilt Coaldale our little Market is taking place next week Thursday and Friday and Thursday is nearly sold out but there is still some spaces available on Friday. You can sign up for that here.

Tuesday we did another Facebook live and talked about some of our favorite bag makers and why they are our favorites.  Esther, Carrie and I love making bags, and swap between that and quilting often. All the bags we make are sewn on domestic machines. 

Pattern designers all have different ways of writing patterns, both in quilting and in bag making, and I am sure any other craft as well. Some of them are very wordy, some use lots of pictures, some have very few pictures. Some over explain things and some don't explain it enough. 

Classic Carryall Andrie 
Roadtrip Wallet Emmaline

I am going to list some of the ones Esther mentioned in her video and provide you with a link to their website. Many of them have a free pattern or two available for download, and most of them are quite simple to make. 

If you are new to making bags this is a great place to start, as it will give you a peek into how that pattern designer writes her patterns and constructs her bags. Most bag patterns are labelled with a difficulty level, so you can gauge whether or not you will be able to make the bag. Many of the designers also have a tips and tricks section on their website to help you with various techniques. Most also have a tutorial page with more tips and hacks on some of their patterns to add zippers, change the straps, use different closures and more. 

We have many of these designers patterns in our shop available to purchase, and are willing to offer classes on them as well in the fall. 

We are also planning on doing some virtual classes with the free downloadable patterns and if you are interested in any of those please send us an email to chickenfeedquilts@gmail.com 

Andrie Designs is one of our favorites, she writes great patterns, has lots of pictures, and the pieces always fit together so well. She is also in the process of creating lots of free video tutorials on various techniques related to making bags, which is super helpful if you are at all nervous about anything, and several of her patterns also come with the option to purchase a video class where she walks you through walking the whole bag. Here is a link to her website. Andrie Designs

Adventure Time Backpack Andrie

Chris W has fantastic patterns. We do not carry them in the shop, but we have taught several classes with her patterns, and what we have done is buy enough copies of the pattern for everyone in the class from Chris W and than get the patterns printed and coil bound for you at Minute Man Press. Chris W

Penny Inn Wallet Chris W

Mrs H is another one of our favourites. She has some fun bags, and her instuctions are really good. 

Sallie Tomato designs bag patterns and produces hardware, and we carry both. Her bags are quite easy to make and her hardware is great. Carrie has taught several of her patterns in our young adults bag class and our Bag Club 1. 

Emmaline is another one that designs patterns and produces hardware, we really like her hardware and have nearly all of it in our shop. I find her patterns a lit difficult to understand when I read them, but if I follow the instructions I end up with a great bag. Emmaline has several free patterns on her site to check out. Emmaline Bags

Noodlehead has great patterns, and we teach many of them in our beginner bag making classes. My 6 year old son just made a tote bag for himself using her wax and wool tote, and Taylor and Shay both made a Range Backpack for themselves, and neither of them had sewn very much before making it. 

She has a couple free downloads, and tutorials. Noodlehead

Wax and Wool Tote Noodlehead

By Annie is a designer that we do have in the shop but I don't really care for her bags, mostly because they are quilted and so they require a lot of fabric, and they also call for you to bind the bag, and I just prefer to flip mine. That being said I have made several of her patterns and the patterns are written very well. 

Next week Tuesday at 10:30am on Facebook Live we will be talking about stabilizers for your bags, tune in too learn more. 

Have a great weekend,

Kayla