A Change of Pace

Next week I'll be starting a weekly Watercolor class at my local community center. I've always liked watercolor painting, and used to do quite a bit of it. I haven't done any painting in a long time, and I thought this would be fun. On the supply list the teacher sent was "bag to put all your stuff in" - so I thought I'd just as soon make a bag as buy one.


I chose the Summertime Tote pattern out of Quilted Bags in a Weekend, because it will fit my pad of paper inside. But I had something in mind instead of the blue & white flying geese:


I decided to do some fusible applique instead of the flying geese, and I've been dying to do reverse applique flames on a bag. I traced the flame pattern onto heavy duty iron-on adhesive (I used a quilting pattern I had purchased at Bayside a while ago). I pressed it onto the black, then cut away the flames and pressed it onto the orange. I'm not wild about the dye circles in this batik, but I managed not to include much of them.


After the applique bit, the rest was a piece of cake! The finished bag is 16" deep and 14" wide at the base. The flames are only on one side, but I think it turned out fantastic. I'm thinking about making a variation on a pencil roll for my paintbrushes.