Following hot on the heels of my pumpkin tea cosy, I was thrilled to see the pattern for this pumpkin bag in Sew Hip Issue 21. I always eagerly scan the October (aka August) issues of my craft magazines for Halloween projects. It's just a pity that you usually only get one month's worth rather than the five that are reserved for Christmas projects!
Anyway, the pumpkin bag by Joanna Landau is designed as a trick or treat bag for kiddiwinks. As I'm more of an all-year-round pumpkin kind of girl, I thought it would make a cute fabric basket for my bits and bobs instead. Hence, as the project suggested, I made a version lined in black felt to add additional structural robustness.
As I was a little low on orange and black felt, I sent for some supplies from the delightful paper-and-string, which arrived the very next day. I cut out the pumpkin segment pattern to make a cardboard template and was good to go.
The pattern suggested attaching the fusible interfacing to one side of the felt after cutting out the segments, but that seemed like a lot of work. So, I attached the interfacing to the whole piece of felt and then did my cutting. This was especially handy when cutting out the black lining segments as I could actually see the outline of the segment on the white surface of the interfacing (trick marker on black is less effective than you might hope).
The eight segments were attached on the sewing machine, which was moderately straightforward. The pattern suggested putting a small circule of felt on the wrong side of the pumpkin to reinforce the bottom of the bag. I glued my circle to the right side of both the outer shell and the lining to hide a tiny bit of dodginess where the very tips of the segment met.
The lining was made in the same way as the outer pumpkin and then I sewed the lining into the pumpkin by hand with embroidery thread. For the handle, I decided to use two pieces of black felt stitched together rather than interfacing a single piece as I thought it looked more elegant.
For decoration, I chose not to make a pumpkin face but rather glued on a selection of spooky embellishments from my stash. I added fab Halloween ceramic buttons from Injabulo to the bottom of the handles for a bit of extra loveliness and to hide some of the handle stitches.
My pumpkin is a tiny bit lopsided, but I'm very excited about filling it with goodies. I do like those tiny chocolate pumpkin you get at Halloween so maybe I will do some trick or treating...
Melx
as usual a great post of what actually happens when making stuff and not 'it all went perfectly' (which never never happens).
ReplyDelete& lovely pumpkin!
Thanks so mcuh Courtney :)
ReplyDeleteOne day I hope to blog about a project that went perfectly, but I doubt that will be any time soon....
OMG.. I LOOOOOOOVE it!!! Well done, sweetness! I want one!! ;) xox
ReplyDeleteAwww, thank you. I'm quite pleased with it :)
ReplyDeleteIt is really great. I have a sewing machine but have not learned to use it yet. I found your post while searching for a pumpkin bag, because I want to make one for my daughter for halloween. I can sew by hand, is this something that could be done without a sewing machine? Even if it has to be altered slightly.. Any ideas? I am not picky, but I was hoping to make a "round bag" so it will be like a pumpkin.
ReplyDeleteI might just have to try some things out and see what happenes!
Hiya
ReplyDeleteYes I think you could sew this by hand, although it would take a bit longer. The pattern in the mag is just segments you piece together. The bag overall isn't too big, so I would think it is doable.
Melx
I found this is an informative and interesting post so i think so it is very useful and knowledgeable. I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article.
ReplyDeleteRound Purse