I start the second bag

This is a woven placemat I bought in Mexico. I liked the colors and the patchwork design. I also saw this fabric in a table cloth in the open air market at the Rio Cuale, and almost bought it, but decided not to becuase I already had four placemats. I decided to use two of them as the material for the next bag I will make. As I mentioned before, this bag is to give to a fund raiser for an early childhood program and is in honor of my friend Kathryn. The idea of using a Mexican theme appealed to me because Kathryn and her family have spent several vacations in Mexico , and some of them have coincided with trips I have had there with my family. I am going to fill the bag with Mexican recipes. food products, music, and a photograph I took at sunset over the beach. I hope someone will like it enough to bid on it at the silent auction. I will try to make it very carefully so that it will look as good as possibie. I have chosen a bright, yellow woven cotton fabric to use as the lining, and a similar green fabric to use for the handles. Here is the yellow lining.

What I have done so far is to first iron the placemat and fuse it to fusible web fabric to make it more stable, and since the web was two sided, I aslo ironed it to a piece of quilt batting. You can see the edges of the batting showing on the photo above. Next, I quilted it with a light blue thread, using a big loopy meanering pattern. I will repeat this with another place mat, and then trim them and sew them together. I will sew a lining from this yellow fabric, and add a pocket on each side. I will make the two straps of green fabric, batting, and yellow fabric on the other side. Then I will assemble the bag. I am running out of time today so I hope to finish it on Thurdsday. Then I can write about Kathryn and what I will put in the bag.