Quilted Butterfly Tote

What a beautiful day we had today. So nice and warm and the sun was shining. Bring on summer!
We enjoyed another day at Point Pelee yesterday and got a great photo of a rare bird to see in Ontario - the Painted Bunting. I'll post it and a couple others tomorrow. Today we went for a short walk thru Spice Bush at Rondeau and then got groceries. Neither one of us felt like getting groceries but we do like eating so we had to go. Tomorrow is yard work day!

Our quilt guild likes to host challenges and this time it was rather different and fun and they had a great response. They took old quilt magazines and picked and recorded a page in each one; rolled it up so we couldn't see inside and then rolled a piece of fabric, about Fat 1/8 around that and secured it with a rubber band. We paid $2.00 and just reached into the tub and grabbed one. If we completed the challenge and brought it to the April meeting, we got the $2.00 back; if not, the $2.00 goes into the guild coffers.  Now the challenge was to pick anything on that page that inspired us to quilt something using the fabric that came with the magazine. It could be anything from a pot holder to a quilt in any size or anything in between, as long as it was quilted. Well I struck pay dirt as far as I'm concerned. My page was a pattern and directions on how to make a tote bag - like we actually need a pattern for that!! And, my fabric was a multi-coloured bright yellow/orange/pink/fuschia. Cool! Loved it!  I wanted to make a new tote to take to the "Y" for Aqua Fit. The lockers there are so narrow a regular size gym bag does not fit very well. So, here's my tote.

This tote bag is LARGE. It's about 14" across and 19" high and 4" wide. I found the two blue fabrics in my stash and used it to construct the bag. The butterflies and the trim across the outside pockets were made from the fabric I had to use......and I use all but a couple little scraps too small for anything. I took the fabric and cut off one piece to use as the binding. Then, I took the rest and fused it in half. My Cuttlebug butterfly die cut thru the double fabric like butter! No problem. So, then I used my Stampin' Up butterfly die to get the smaller sizes. I wanted it to look like they were coming out of the pocket so I made sure I placed some coming out. They were attached in the centre by using one of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine that I thought looked like a body of a butterfly.  The inside is plain white and also has pockets.  It didn't win by the way but that's okay. I like my new tote bag and I had fun designing and making it.