garden district saturday market bag
Thursday, August 18th, 2011This is how I look after work most days, trying to hustle home as much fabric as possible.
I knew the minute I saw Heather Bailey’s new fabrics from Free Spirit at Quilt Market that I had to make a bag with them. Garden District is a collection of wide, heavy canvas that’s just asking to be tossed around and treated roughly. It screams, “I can take it and look good too!” I wanted a big bag to show off the large Nouvelle Rose print, so I chose Heather Bailey’s Saturday Market Bag pattern.
I’d somehow never made a Heather Bailey pattern before this, but it was just as easy to follow as I expected. And I actually started and finished it in the same day, so I avoided some unfinished project guilt there. The pattern includes several versions of the bag, and I made option 3, without the bow or contrasting sections. I decided to go for the reversible option, so didn’t put any pockets in either. The pattern calls for lightweight canvas for an interfacing, but since I was already using heavy canvas for both the outside and lining, I left the interfacing out. And am glad I did. Another benefit of this canvas is that it’s extra wide at 58″, so even though the pattern calls for 1-1/8 yards each of outer and lining fabrics, in the canvas it only takes about 3/4 yards each.
I love how simple, pretty, and BIG it is. It’s named right, because I’m so ready to take this thing to the farmer’s market Saturday! Because I intended to use it as a shopping bag and I know I’ll be filling it to the max, I didn’t put in the optional snaps that let you contract the sides. So since I left out bows, pockets, interfacing, and snaps, the bag was a quick sew. From cutting out fabric to the last topstitching it probably took at most 4 hours.
The one cheating moment I had was to machine stitch the straps closed instead of hand sewing them. I figured since I was topstitching anyway, it wouldn’t look any worse to have a seam there.
This photo also gives you a bit of a sense of the texture of the canvas. It’s substantial weight gives it a more professional look. We’ve had the Free Spirit home dec weight sateens in the shop, but this heavy canvas is new. I’m very happy with the quality of it and I think it will be quite useful. I’ve got a backpack in mind for my next canvas project. For now the Saturday Market bag is on display in the shop, and kits are available for this very version.