The Scrap Happy Quilt is finished.

I was given a bunch of scraps from a friend and here is the finished quilt I made from some of them.

Here it is finally finished.  It is backed with pale yellow flannel and mom quilted it for me.

Here is a closeup of the quilting.

Shopping bags

I used the last of my striped canvas material that I have had for years to make shopping bags.

The striped ones were made first.

I looked at a paper shopping bag to get the size.  I measured the height and around the entire top of the open bag and the rectangle bottom.  The fabric I had wasn't going to make the same size bags, so I had to make my own size.

I wanted to make the best use of my fabric so I cut it into four equal pieces. The fabric in the picture is two layers thick.  It was a little longer than the paper bag and a little wider.  I had to cut off a section of the bottom of the fabric in the picture above to make the bottom of the bag.  I decided to cut off 5 inches.  I then measured what was left and came up with 32 1/2 inches.  Take away 1/2 inch for the seam allowance and I now had 32 inches for make a bag with.  Since the 5 inch strip was going to be used for the bottom of the bag I now needed to figure out the bag width.  Two bottom widths equals ten inches.  2 x 5 = 10.  32 - 10 = 22.  22 divided by 2 = 11.  Thus my bag bottom had to be 5 by 11.  Confusing I know.  I should have taken pictures.

I just turned the bag inside out and took this picture. The bottom of the bag is two layers thick.

I folded the top down one inch then down another inch and top stitched near the bottom fold. Then I cut straps 24 inches long and placed them where I thought they looked good and would be easy for carrying.  Hubby wanted them long, so the straps are longer than I was originally going to make them.  I folded the raw edges of the straps under before sewing and sewed them to the bag using a box shape with an X in the middle to secure it. I sewed the straps on and hemmed the top of the bag from the inside of the bag.  I used dark blue on top and off white in the bobbin when sewing, so I took the picture from the outside so it would show better.

The solid blue bags I made the same way as The Kid Tote bags which you can find here. I just made a wider bottom, cut off the extra fabric and did extra stitching to secure the corner edge.  This bag is 5 inches wide across the bottom. The straps are 27 inches long.

I wondered into Savers on Veteran's Day and found that most everything was half price.  There I found this 1 1/2 yard piece of fabric on sale for $1.50 and knew I had to get it for some wide bags to go with my newly made tall skinny bags.
 
I have enough fabric for one more bag, but not enough strapping for the handles.  I took what was left of the strapping and divided into 4 pieces for the handles.  Six pieces made the handles too short.

As soon as I go buy some more strapping I will have 7 shopping bags.  And I have used up sewing materials that have been sitting around for years.

Here are two other things I have made in the past from the striped fabric.  I am guessing they were both made at least 5 years ago.

This is a bag that hold the car DVD players.  The original was vinyl  and didn't last long.  I made a pattern off of it.

Here is the inside of the bag with the compartments.  I saved the cardboard in the old bag to put inside the dividers of the new bag.

Here is the front view.

Another item is my clothespin bag.  The hanger inside has broken on one side, but it still works.  There are pockets on both sides.  I made this bag from what I remembered my grandmothers bag looking like.
If anyone really wants to make one I can write out instructions.