Quilters Bag

My church has a ladies' group called Sweet Sundays that has been around for a while.  I never really got into it because they would get together over bakery and coffee on Sunday afternoons.  Since I have a full-time job, my Sunday afternoons are precious and if it's not football season, I like to use that time to sew.  Now that I think about it, even during football games, I use that time to sew. There's nothing like having the Packers' game on in my sewing room.  Anyway, a newer church member whose name is Judy discovered that there was a big old box of fabric left at church.  Judy is a drapery maker who loves to quilt, teaches sewing, and belongs to a quilt guild.  I was instantly drawn to her. So she had this idea to make all those fabric scraps she found into strip quilts.  I was in. 

We started on a Sunday afternoon in her basement/sewing room where there was a cutting table larger than a ping-pong table.  That made sense for a drapery maker.  So us ladies cut, cut, cut and cut some more until we had enough 3 and a half-inch strips to make at least 3 lap quilts. Then we sewed the strips end-to-end, followed by cutting them into 60-inch long strips.  The second week we met at church with our sewing machines and stitched the strips together until we had the length of a nice quilt.  Some women were not sewers but they got some good instructions from Judy or they were willing to cut or press when needed.  Next time we meet we will put the tops into quilt sandwiches and discuss which charity group will get our finished products.

We have decided as a group to keep meeting, keep making quilts and possibly get involved in something like Dresses for Africa. Maybe I can even convince the group to do a Project Linus quite or two. That brings me to my quilt tote. I have bunches of really cute fabric that is sewing-themed and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a tote for my cutting mat.  It was difficult to drag the thing around without a handle.  The struggle I had was in choosing which cute collection of sewing-related fabric to use.

I googled fabric cutting mat totes and found this tutorial over at BecauseISaySew and made my interpretation of her tote.  Mine has a pocket inside designed to hold the mat and I added an extra row of stitching to the sides of the pocket to make it extra-tight so the mat was held in place.  I put the pockets inside to hold rulers and a rotary cutter as well as scissors.  I also added some buttons for decoration.  I think this will suit me well on Sweet Sundays.