How initials and decorative stitches personalize a simple quilted bag

 What’s the most personal way to embellish a project? With the recipient’s initials, of course!

In yesterday’s post, I shared my plan to create a quilted book bag using the features of the creative 3.0. As the creative 3.0 is an embroidery machine, I decided the first thing to do was to personalize the project with some embroidery.

There are several sewing fonts on the creative 3.0 and two embroidery fonts. With the embroidery unit attached the embroidery fonts can be selected. I selected a cursive font and enlarged the letter as large as the machine would let me. I chose a turquoise thread for the letter to show on my background fabric and still complement my other fabric choice.

The creative 3.0 comes with two different sized hoops. For this project, I used the smaller, 120 x 120 hoop. When you press the embroidery stitch out button the machine will tell you which hoop to use for your project. Remember your fabric will need to be big enough to fit in the hoop and extend beyond the edge of it a little bit too. For the most successful embroidery, it’s always a good idea to use a stabilizer with the fabric; I used a cutaway embroidery stabilizer recommended to me by my local quilt shop owner.

There are several sewing fonts on the creative 3.0 and two embroidery fonts. With the embroidery unit attached the embroidery fonts can be selected. I selected a cursive font and enlarged the letter as large as the machine would let me. I chose a turquoise thread for the letter to show on my background fabric and still complement my other fabric choice.

The creative 3.0 comes with two different sized hoops. For this project, I used the smaller, 120 x 120 hoop. When you press the embroidery stitch out button the machine will tell you which hoop to use for your project. Remember your fabric will need to be big enough to fit in the hoop and extend beyond the edge of it a little bit too. For the most successful embroidery, it’s always a good idea to use a stabilizer with the fabric; I used a cutaway embroidery stabilizer recommended to me by my local quilt shop owner.

The initial stitched out fine but looked a little lonely on the long piece of fabric so I asked my son to pick out a decorative stitch from the built-in ones found on the creative 3.0.
I added a row above and below the initial using the same color thread.

Make Bag Outer Panels

I laid out the embroidered fabric with a strip of the other fabric I picked out to use for the quilted book bag. I sewed these two pieces together to give me one outer panel that was approximately 12½” x 14″.

Now to make the other outer side of the bag.
I had a few leftover strips of the two fabrics and decided to make more to create my own striped fabric panel. These strips are 2″ high and I sewed enough together to make this panel 14″ high too.

Quilted Pocket

To personalize this bag I made my orphaned pineapple block into a quilted pocket.
To do this I cut a piece of batting and background fabric the same size as my block.
I layered the three together with the batting on the bottom, the backing next right side up, and the block right side down on top.

I pinned all the way around and left an opening on one of the long sides. Then I stitched around backstitching at the beginning and end of the gap. Next, I pushed the pocket through the opening and made sure that my stitching went through all three layers. With a quick clip of the corners, I turned in and finger pressed the gap closed and put a pin in it.

Now it’s time to quilt the pineapple! I used the presser foot 1A to stitch in the ditch around the pineapple and the leaves. I didn’t want to quilt in all of the seams of the pineapple, but I did want to add some more texture to it. This is where all those fabulous built-in stitches come in – I went through the art stitches menus right on the Color Touch Screen selecting stitches to see if they used the presser foot 1A (because I didn’t want to change the presser foot and need to cut my thread!)

I found a stitch and used it in the two straight seams in the middle of the pineapple. I’m really happy with how it turned out:)
Then I decided to topstitch around the pineapple pocket with the same neutral thread and tried out the topstitching foot.

I really like the pineapple pocket on the stripe panel! But before I sew the pocket on I added a bit of body to the bag by adding batting to the stripe panel. I didn’t add batting on the other side because I thought it would make the bag too bulky for a little girl; if/when I make a bigger bag for me, I’ll quilt both outer panels.

In this case, I simply stitched in the ditch between all the strips with the 1A presser foot; it has ideal red guides marked on it to make it easy to stay in the ditch.

Then I pinned the pocket in place so I could topstitch it in place. I laid the panel out on my cutting board and placed the middle of the pocket in the middle of the width of the panel. You can also see that I lined up the top of the pocket under a green stripe on the panel.

It’s hard to believe that a little bit of embroidery led to creating a quilted book bag. The PFAFF creative 3.0 makes it easy to keep adding special stitches to create a personalized gift.