Friday, July 23, 2010

Furoshiki Bag for the Beach


Yesterday while I was reading through the blogs I follow, I came upon a tutorial at annekata’s blog for this great little carry-all picnic or beach bag.  It is a quick, easy to make, super last minute gift. Because it was such horribly hot weather today, I needed something to keep me busy inside besides reading “Eat, Pray, Love” After looking at the tutorial, I decided to hit my quilting scraps and see if I could come up with enough of a single fabric to pull one off for a trial pattern.  The fabric I found was only a 36” square, not as large as the tutorial called for, but I went with it anyway.  The pony tail thingies were pink ones little Eloise left here over the weekend so I used them.  I did hand hem the square simply because I am so old I love and prefer hemming by hand! Mine is pretty crude compared to the one on the blog, but now I am ready to go to the quilting shop, pick out some really attractive fabric, have it be 43” square or so, and I will embroider the edges after I hand hem them. When you are 71, it is always a good idea to do a dry run practice piece before you sit down to make it out of good material as a gift. I am going to make one for my daughter and each of my two daughter-in-laws to use when we all meet at the beach for our family reunion in August. Give it a try....you will not be disappointed.

I hand hemmed my square, spread it out, and placed in the center my beach towel, book, and sunscreen.

                   I rolled it on the diagonal until the “V” at the end was on the top.

Here I pulled the two side tails taut and placed the ponytail thingies around each one.

Next I tied the two side tails together in a knot.

My completed Furoshiki Over-the-Shoulder Beach Bag!

Update....Friday.....I just got back from the quilting shop with 3 pieces of BEAUTIFUL Amy Butler fabric to make the Furoshiki bags.  I have already started on the blue and green one and am in the process of embroidering the hem. Here are the fabrics.

4 comments:

  1. Oh my! How clever is that. I bet if you had a sturdy scarf big enough you could use it, too.
    It looks daring.

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  2. You are very clever and talented. That is a neat idea for a beach bag. I would love to have one, but I do not get to go to beaches very often. I love the fabric you have chosen.

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  3. Great bag - even I could do it. Thanks for visitng and glad to bring back memories -we are new to the Asheville area and still dicovering it after living 10 years in Linville. Sunda we go to Bele Chere! Hopefully will post that this week.

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  4. Love your new fabrics. I don't sew often, but the bug has hit me recently. I made a couple of market bags and a couple of small wallets. It was fun, but one of the many things that have me sidetracked from the stitchalong project!

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