Sew Beautiful Quilted Bags

Earlier this month we were sent a book to test our sewing skills out on. I’ve been an off and on again sewer since my teens and jumped at the chance to try out a new quilting book. The book is Sew Beautiful Quilted Bags by Akemi Shibata. It’s a gorgeous book full off different styles of quilting and applique and a huge range of different bag styles.

I have to say the range grabbed my attention immediately more so than the quilting since most books have the standard easy shopper bag and then different styles on that. This however is filled with a diverse range of 28 beautiful and useful bags to hand quilt and make your own and in your own style.

We decided to make a simple Flower Pochette….

We followed the instructions but did struggle in a couple of places with how they had been written. Its worth paying attention to the commas in the book – b and b, are in fact two separate different shapes not an odd gramma usage. I suspect this more down to a translation difference than anything else as the rest of the book has clear instructions.

We tweaked a couple of the instructions – we made the front as one complete piece rather than two separates due more to a lack of fabric! One of the things we did like about the book and patterns were that were easy to tweak to your own style of sewing.

The Pochette was made over the space of a week and embroidered and quilted in the evenings while watching tv. It’s a superb way of destressing and keeping your mind occupied without causing your brain to be overly stretched.

The patterns are copied off using either pattern paper, thin paper or tracing paper – depending on your personal preference and there’s a handy/envelope for you to store them in later.

While the styles are simple and the instructions are easy to follow I would say that some knowledge of sewing and quilting is needed. It’s a superb book to gift someone who enjoys sewing and quilting. The results are very unique and different to many other handbag book projects out there. The handles in the book are mainly bought ones and I would have liked to see more of these in the book.

The book covers bags which aren’t just sewing but cover hand quilting, applique, embroidery and bead work. Techniques such as button covering and finishing techniques, and different stitches are in the back and are a handy and a lovely addition.  I’d definitely recommend having one in your house!