Have y’all seen Karen Nyberg’s new Earth Views fabric line with Robert Kaufman? It’s beautiful, and comes to stores this month.
For Earth Day this year, Aurifil challenged us to make a project using this fabric line, and Karen’s curated Aurifil thread
I made my project with one fat quarter from Robert Kaufman Earth Views fabric line, paired with matching thread from Karen’s Aurifil Earth Views thread collection.
I wanted to make something that was functional in my day-to-day life, but showed off the pretty fabric as well. Since I had 4 fabric colors and the complete thread line, I could mix and match colors in any way I wanted.
I decided to make this azuma bukuro bag, following a tutorial from cocostitch. This is a Japanese style of bag with a simple, elegant, geometric shape.
I used one fat quarter to make my bag. Fat quarters measure 18” x 22”, and the tutorial called for a long skinny rectangle, with a 1:3 height:width ratio, to make this bag. The fat quarter proportions weren’t even close.
While I could have used my fat quarter to make a couple of smaller bags, I wanted to maximize the size of the bag, while minimizing fabric waste.
I cut my 18” x 22” fat quarter in half lengthwise, to make (2) 18” x 11” lengths of fabric. I sewed the short sides together with a flat-felled seam, to create one long strip of fabric, roughly 11” x 35”. You can see the (barely visible!) flat felled seam in the photo above.
I cut my final bag piece from this long strip. I chose to cut 11” x 32”, which allowed for a ~10” tall bag with seam allowances. I only had one 2” strip of fabric left over - success!
I won’t get into the math or construction details— coco stitch covers all of that really well! I recommend checking out their tutorial and following the step-by-step. I promise it is simpler than it looks— you’ll be so impressed!
Here’s the finished bag I made.
Isn’t it gorgeous?
I love that every time I pick up this bag, the print will remind me of how beautiful and precious our earth is. This one is just the right size to hold some produce at the grocery store, hold a craft project on the go, or grab on my way out the door as a small shopping bag.
Happy stitching!