A Panel Challenge!

At the start of March, a challenge by Shelly at Prairie Moon Quilts was issued - A Panel Challenge.  Take a panel which has been languishing in your stash for a long time and make something from it.

I discovered that for a person who really does not like panels very much, that I have 10 of them!!

This panel I had initially purchased to make a tote bag with.  I really couldn't think of what else to do, but somehow had never gotten around to doing just that, until now.  BUT, I did start working again on a reverse hand applique UFO that needed a better bag than the torn paper shop bag I was using; AND Shelly had issued the panel challenge about the same time - talk about serendipity coming into play!

I do not remember how old this panel is, only that I have had in my stash for more than 10 years.  The Jacobean style flowers on it are gorgeous and the flowers in the vase with the red frame remind of those old tapestry fire-place screens.

The writing on the right hand side of the picture is instructions for turning the panel into a quilt.  I still have those instructions for using as a feature piece on another quilt sometime in the future.

The other half of the panel was these vines with leaves on them.  I managed to used three of the vines in making the back panel of the tote bag.  The remaining vine strip has also been put aside for a future use.

Because I wasn't completely sure how this bag was going to go together and I was determined to only use what I have on hand to make it, I auditioned some fabrics from my stash to see what would and wouldn't work.  In the end I kept it very simple by using the gold/cream print for the lining and the dark teal/blue tone-on-tone leaf print for the borders, handles and gusset pieces. 

I made the back of the bag first because that had more piecing and cobbling together and I had to do some cutting and joining of the vine strips to make them the same length as the flower row.  The printing of the flower squares was quite "off grain" which meant careful cutting and joining together to get something resembling straight.

The front of the bag was simply a case of trimming the edges straight and adding borders to bring it up to the same size as the back.

Super simple gusset construction with easy rectangles for the base and side panels.  I then made a second bag body with the lining fabric, added the handles, top-stitched around the top of the bag to stop the lining from pulling out and sewed up the turn hole on the inside and it was done!  Two half days of work and it was done!

I did not use any wadding/batting because I want it to squash down for easy packing with travel projects and then it can 'flop open' on a table at sewing days.

The front of the bag is shown above and the back of the bag is shown below.

And... inside the bag is the above-mentioned reverse applique project from 2012 which I have not touched since 2012 until a couple of months ago - oops - that I put into this bag so my new tote bag from a panel has an intended purpose.

A "one-off" bag that I am very happy to have made and I met the challenge requirements too!!  

**  There is no pattern for my Panel Bag.  I made it up as I went along with ideas jotted in my notebook.