My daughter just finished her first full year of Preschool! She had two very wonderful teachers this year, and I wanted to make them each a thank you gift that they could use. Classic quilted tote bags to the rescue!
On the pink bag I used Tula Pink’s print Geo in color Dawn, from the Moon Garden Mama line. I also used some scraps of Tula quilt backing for the contrast stripe (Northern Lights Roar, in Blush), and a beautiful print that @AudiobookLover sent to me as a prize in the Quiltalong. I believe it is Menagerie in Dalia, from Alison Glass’s Sun Print line for Andover Fabrics (2020). I loved it so much that I ordered a bit more for the lining and handles.
Here are some progress pics, that show the quilting as I was doing it. The straight lines took forever, but I like how they came out. Ditto on the criss cross quilting for the bottom.
The wavy lines for the contrast strip were fun, freehanded, and best of all, fast.
The green bag also feature’s a Tula Pink print for the top. The print is Out Foxed, from the Tiny Beasts line, in the color Glow. The contrast stripe was leftover from making Ada’s heart quilt earlier this year. And the bottom, straps and lining are Robo Boogie’s Medium Stripey in Teal, by Bernatex.
In learning from going overboard on quilting the pink bag, I went a little easier on myself for the green one. For the top I freehanded a wavy line on the top, then just shadowed it back and forth on both sides. For the contrast stripe I just followed 3 of the spikey lines across, and for the bottom I did straight lines, following the stripes, skipping 2 stripes between each row of quiltling.
Progress shot on the quilting.
It’s a little easier to see what I did from the back.
Once the bags were finished, washed and dried, they needed to be filled up! I mean, you just can’t give someone an empty tote bag, right?
Each one got a pack of construction paper, a bag of Tony’s chocolates, metallic pipe cleaners, a 4-pack of tissues, a pack of glow in the dark bracelets, encouraging stickers, and colored popsicle sticks. (My kid goes through tissues like it’s her job, and one of the teachers did a “Baby Rave” the other day. She gave the kids glow sticks, and put on dance remixes of Preschool songs, and let the kids go nuts dancing.) Hopefully the goodies will come in handy for class next year, and the bags will get lots of use.
