Outlander swap tote - a Finish Friday

Behold!  My finished tote for the Outlander Craft Swap.

It started with a plan....

Then, I got to work on the thistle applique.  I used a fusible to help give me a bit of support for those tiny jagged leaves and keep them in place.  Then I used a small blanket stitch to machine applique them to my white background.

Next, I moved onto the trapunto for the knot portion.  I have not done trapunto before, so I was kind of winging it.  I put a small piece of batting behind the knot, then stitched on the lines of the knot. Then I used my applique scissors to trim the batting away as close to the stitching lines as possible in the areas that I wanted to be shaded.

Then, I added batting to the entire piece, and when to work adding quilting to the shaded area of the knot.  I used Cindy Needham's "Scribbling" technique to do this.  She talks about it a lot in her Craftsy class, Design it, Quilt It - with Cindy Needham (affliate link**).  I highly recommend this class!!!  It is chock full of awesome quilting designs.

When I was all done quilting the knot, I moved on to the background behind the thistles.  Can't not have some swirls!

Next, I turned the whole thing into a tote bag.  I debated making it a pillow.....it would have been a lovely pillow.  But, I thought my partner would never get to show it off if it was just a pillow.  Rarely do I see people walking around town with pillows in their hands.  So, a tote.  A nice, useful, practical tote (with an interior zip pocket and a regular interior pocket too).

I hope my partner likes it!  I used up practically all of my favorite 2 purple fabrics.  I hope she likes purple!


Thanks for reading today,


Jen




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