I chose the same fabric to match my machine cover, but I needed it to be a bit stronger to be able to take the weight of the machine. I used some white cotton drill, which you can pick up fairly cheaply in many places. The amount of fabric needed really depends on your machine, but a metre should be plenty.

You will need:

1 metre of white cotton drill

1 metre each of two different colourful fabrics (you may have enough with 1 metre, but I made bias binding from the solid colour, which always uses more than you think!)

A rotary cutter and cutting mat

Matching thread

Pins

An iron

A bias binding maker (I used a 2.5cm / 1″ maker)

Step 1

Lay out your cotton drill and place your machine in the middle, so that you can bring the fabric up around the sides of your machine. Work out how deep and how wide the bag needs to be and then cut a rectangular shape to size – for my Janome 525S this worked out at two 75 x 54cm pieces. Then I cut out a 10 x 10cm square from each of the bottom corners. These pieces will form the lining of the bag.

Step 2

To make the outer bag pieces, I laid some of the solid colour over the bottom of the lining, so that it covered where I had cut out the squares and about another 12cm or so (to allow for seam allowance) up what will be the side of the bag.

Once you have cut this piece, lay out the lining and the solid colour to be able to work out how big to cut your patterned fabric (allowing a centimetre or two for seam allowance, and then pin them together. You can see the selvedge here on my fabric, so I stitched just outside of it so that it wouldn’t show when pressed open.

Step 3

Press open the seam allowance and iron the outer and lining pieces. Place them together and pin before quilting them to make them really secure.

I stitched between alternate kits shapes on this fabric, like I did with my sewing machine cover. This took quite a while with both pieces, but it’s really effective and will help the bag to be nice and strong. You’ll notice that I only quilted up to the solid fabric, and I think this looks really great, if I say so myself!

Step 4

The next step is to make this into a bag! Place the pieces right sides together, and pin along the sides and bottom. Don’t do anything with the cut out squares yet, but stitch along the other edges with a 1.5cm seam. Trim the excess and press to one side. Then you need to fold each corner so that the short, unstitched sides meet like this:

Pin these short sides together, checking on the insides that the lines of the outer fabrics match up (I forgot to do this, despite thinking about it, so I do have a wonky corner!). I found it helpful to pin the seam allowance to one side too, so that when I stitched along the edge (again, with a 1.5cm allowance), it tucked in the right way.

Step 5

Make your bias binding and then attach it to the top of the bag. I matched my binding to the solid colour of the bottom of the bag, and used matching thread too.

Step 6

The last thing to do is to make the handles. You could use some webbing here if you like, but I wanted my handles to match the patterned fabric as I love it so much! I cut out two pieces of cotton drill that measured 75 x 3.5cm, and then cut out two pieces of patterned fabric that were big enough to wrap around the drill (I just did this by eye rather than measuring).

Fold the patterned fabric around the drill and press it so that it’s all nice and flat. Pin it together and stitch to secure. I folded so that my seams ran down the middle of the drill, and then I stitched either side of them. Fold over the short ends and stitch them too.

Position the handles and stitch them in place. I did this with a rectangle around the edges of the handles, and then a cross in the middle. The cross is key to this, as it makes them really strong. It looks like there is lots of stitching here, but those handles aren’t going anywhere!

Ta-dah! That’s it Your new sewing machine bag is ready to use and take wherever you want to go. No more wondering where the pedal has got to – it’s in the bag!

This is such a spacious bag that even if you didn’t want to use it to put a sewing machine in, it would make a super beach bag!

Have you got any sewing projects planned this weekend? Happy sewing!

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I decided that I’d make a quilted cover, so chose some white fabric for the inside lining – it didn’t really need to be jazzy because no-one will see the inside! For the binding I picked out the pale aqua colour to co-ordinate, and got myself a bias binding-making tool too.

The first thing that I did was measure my machine with its plastic cover on – I measured from the middle of the front to the back, and then the width of the front. I also measured the width and height of the side. When I had the measurements I drew out some templates on craft paper, and to get the shape of the side pieces just right I drew around the side of the cover.

Once the templates were cut out, I then cut out all the pieces of fabric and wadding. I layered up the side pieces first and then pinned them together.

I tried out my quilting guide attachment for the first time today, and it’s brilliant for sewing evenly. I haven’t used it before because I’ve only ever used thicker polyester wadding, and not this thinner cotton wadding. I love the thinner stuff – it’s much easier to sew with! I decided to stitch between every other row after experimenting on some scrap pieces.

Once I had quilted the side pieces, I did the same with the large rectangular piece. This larger piece needed more pins to keep it all together, but I quilted it in the same way.

Once all three pieces were quilted, I pinned them (wrong sides together) before stitching. To make the cover fit a little better, I trimmed the excess afterwards.

The final thing to do was to make and attach the bias binding. The tool was really easy to use and it didn’t take as long as I thought! I also got a binding attachment for my machine, but I could not get the hang of it at all when I practised using it…so to save making a complete mess of my cover, I just pressed the binding in half and pinned and stitched it on.

Ta-dah!

I’m so glad that I chose this fabric – it certainly brightened up a very gloomy day today! Hopefully I’ll be able to sew dust free from now on…

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Many, many years ago, I made a bag for our Scrabble letters with my Mum – here it is:

Yes, that does say ‘1993’ and I was 7 and 3/4 (the 3/4 is very important!). Unfortunately, it got a hole in the bottom and I think something was spilt on it, so we had to wash it – so the colourful tiles that I had drawn on were washed away! This lovely faded creation has served us well, but it was about time that we have a new one for the next 20 or so years.

I found this gorgeous fabric and decided that it would be perfect (I did suggest to Tom that I could make a skirt out of it, but he didn’t like that idea – it would be ‘too jazzy’ apparently!). I teamed it up with some neon pink ribbon and decided that I’d make some little Scrabble tiles with some wool felt.

The first thing I did was to draw around a Scrabble tile onto the felt, before copying the letters and points onto the felt too. Then I embroidered the letters on using split stitch.

Then I made the bag (modelled on the old one) – after folding it in half with the right sides together, I pressed seams that would allow the ribbon to pass through the top and then stitched close to the edge of the hem. Then I pinned the sides, stitched them together and then trimmed off the excess with pinking shears. After turning the bag the right way around, I pressed it.

The next step was to attach the letters – I used a small running stitch to do this.

Next, I finished the edges of the tops of the bag, before threading the ribbon through and sewing the ends together.

Ta-dah!

Here’s to many more fun games of Scrabble!

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This has been a top-secret project for a few weeks now, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you! I’ve made these playmat toy bags for our gorgeous friends Rachel and Daria – Rachel has now given birth to baby Joshua and Daria (my partner-in-craft) is due very soon! I wanted to make them something extra special and it took me ages to find the perfect thing. I found the tutorial for this in the free book that came with the December 2013 issue of Craftseller magazine, and it was originally designed by Mia Underwood in her book, Nordic Crafts.

The original design of the bag is the night scene, but I decided to make my own daytime version too.

I actually found the instructions a little tricky to follow so in a few places I just did my own thing…! I chose some funky fabrics and cut out the appliqué pieces first, before laying them out on the large cotton pieces. I used a zig-zag stitch to attach the pieces to the fabric, and placed some wadding underneath the mountain pieces and a piece of foil blanket (the ones you get after running!) underneath the pond.

The daytime version has some different fabrics on it, to contrast with the green ‘grass’ fabric, and I included a sun on this version instead of the stars from the original.

The bag has velcro at the top to keep all of the toys in. I found this funky elephant fabric in John Lewis for the backing, and decided to get it in two different shades because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best!

I’m so pleased with how they turned out – I hope the babies and Mummies are too!

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