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

Bag Club x 3

This past Wednesday we held our Class Reveal at our shop, thank you to everyone that came out. As promised I will now share them here. I will begin with the Bag Clubs that we are offering, and when we are back from our camping trip, I will share the other clubs we are offering followed by some of the individual classes.
At the Open House we had two Bag Clubs, a beginner friendly club (Bag Club 1.0) and one that is more advanced (Bag Club 2.0), however after some feedback we will be throwing in a third club.

First up Bag Club 1.0. This club as mentioned is beginner friendly, the patterns are a variety of sizes and styles and come from several different pattern designers. There is wallets, handbags, duffel bags, and more. You will learn new techniques and how to work with different materials like mesh clear vinyl, cork, leather and more. How its going to work is as follows. There are a total of 9 bag patterns to choose from. Each bag pattern has a date scheduled for it (1 a month), on this date we will get together in our classroom and make this bag. In some cases there may be a little prep work, in others it might end up being a finish at home kind of bag, some of them you may finish completely in the allotted time. Supply lists and any prep work will be sent out via email about a week prior to the class date.
There is a $120 commitment fee for the club. You can come to all of them or just pick and choose, for the first 6 that you attend you will receive a $20 Chicken Feed Quilts Cash Coupon, this coupon is yours to spend. If you attend 6 or more, your club fee will be completely reimbursed to you, if you attend fewer than 6, you will forfeit those coupons.
Bag Club 2.0, this club will work the same way as the Bag 1.0 Club.  Bag Club 2 includes all the Bag Club 1 patterns as well as an additional bunch that are a little more advanced, for the majority of these additional patterns we have made them 2 day classes, and have provided an optional cutting day as well. All the patterns are on different days, none of them overlap with each other, (for the most part there is 2 different patterns each month) For the classes that include the Bag 1 patterns, we will all get together as a larger group.
The fee for Bag 2.0 is $160 and for the first 8 classes you will receive a $20 CFQ Cash Coupon, again you may attend as many as you like.
Bag Club 1 and 2 will both be held during the day and we will start at 10am and the classroom will be open for sewing until 4pm.

The third Bag Club is being taught by Carrie and is geared towards young adults between the ages of 16 and 24. Little to no bag making experience is required to attend. In this club you will make bags that are very useful, and simple, but also teach you new bag making techniques. You will put zippers in, use hardware and explore the use of different interfacings, stabilizers, and different types of materials including some opportunities to use cork, leather or vinyl.
The fee for the club will work the same way as the other two, with this one being set at $80.
The Young Adults Bag Club will be an evening club, running from 7pm-9pm, most of the bags will be taught over the course of two evenings to ensure you get as much done as possible, and are not left with unfinished bags.

To sign up for any of these clubs click here. (The dates for each are listed in the Class Description when you open the class link)
If you wish to sign up for any of the classes individually there will also be an option for that, I just have not uploaded them to the website yet. The fee for the single day classes will be $25 and for the two classes it will be $45, you will not receive CFQ cash coupons back for this fee though, that is only for those that commit to the whole club.
There will be no blog posts next week, the next one will be on Tuesday, August 27.
Have a great weekend!
Kayla

Favorite Finishes of 2017

SXLLM​​It is the last weekend of 2017 already! On Tuesday I mentioned that I would share some of our favorite finishes of the year, so scroll through the pictures of Carrie’s, Esther’s and my favorite quilts and bags. 

First up Carrie. She made a quilt for a friend that moved here from Scotland this past year. She used the fabric collection called With Glowing Hearts. Carrie also did a Panda Quilt but believe it or not, neither of us happen to have a picture of it! She also really loves the two lunch kits she made and had a very hard time choosing which to use for school and which to display in the store. I can see why they both turned out so well!

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SXLLM​​Esther has several favourites. Two quilts that she made for gifts made the top of the list. The black and pink quilt was a super fun one that she made as a wedding gift for our ski coach in Florida. The other quilt us d the digital prints by Hoffman and was a gift for her cousin’s son who stayed with her last year. These digital panels are so fun and there is so many different ones to choose from now.

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She made a Penny Inn Wallet this spring and it definitely has been put to good use. In fact it is pretty much worn through! 

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One of my favourite quilts that I made this year is probably the one made using the Strippy Stars Ruler, in fact it is one of two that I couldn’t even put up for sale. The Keys To My Heart quilt and the collage quilts I did also top the list

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My favourite bag has to be the Range backpack that I finished this weekend.

We all have more quilts and bags that we love but I can only add so many pictures. Check out the gallery for pictures of more of our quilts, or come in store to see the latest ones!

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SXLLM​​As the year draws to a close it is also the time that everyone sets goals for themselves, making lists of things that they want to accomplish and tasks that need to be tackled. Do you make any quilting resolutions? Maybe you want to learn a new technique, finish a project thats been sitting around for awhile, clean up those scraps, or make a quilt just for yourself.This past year I pushed myself to try new techniques, rulers, patterns and color schemes. I worked out of my box many times, and though it was hard at first, it became easier and looking back I have grown as a quilter so much. Quilts I never thought I would be able to do, I have done or am currently working on. I only hope that I can learn and grow more in 2018. 

 Remember we are now closed until Wednesday, January 3. All of us at Chicken Feed Quilts wish you a Happy New Year, and thank you for your business in 2017. Your support is incredible and you make our jobs so much fun!

Until next year,

Kayla