Next sewing project

Thought I'd show you what I'm up to next. A couple of years ago (or maybe it was many years ago, can't remember, lol) I found a pic in "Crafts beautiful" that showed a beautiful quilted bag. It was a bookreview about handmade quilted bags. I found this issue the other day and wrote up the title of the book. I searched in my library and they had it! My library is the best! We even have a bunch of english craftmags.

Remember some of the great fabrics I bought together with my rotary cutter, mat and ruler? I decided to make a bag out of them for a summery bag. I needed 36 10x14cm squares and wasn't sure how to approach it. First I just cut out approximately that square and measured afterwards. It was soooo tiresome since each square took forever. I started planning instead and decided on 4 squares in 9 different fabrics. After deciding that I made it a bit easier and made a long piece that was 14cm high and started cutting at 10cm. The only problem was that I forgot I needed 4 pieces and made just 3 of each fabric. Sigh. I think I had made over half when I noticed that.

Surprisingly enough I didn't get too frustrated. I thought it was a bit annoying and I wanted to start sewing, but it wasn't too bad. Earlier I think I would've put the tools away and hidden the sewingmachine :)

Here is the result of a few hours I think it took me to cut them out.




The thing I get a bit worried about is that the edges fray a bit. I've used cottonfabric and I was wondering about the fraying, but the lady in the sewing store said it was made for quilting? I thought quiltfabrics didn't fray at all?
I tried to sew the edges exactly with the same seamallowence, but it was hard. These don't matter much because they won't be aligned the way that they need the points to be crisp. But if I want to make something with exact squares I think I might be disappointed. I really need everything to be exact. If something wouldn't align perfectly I would toss it which would not let me learn by trial and error. Hmmm, maybe this isn't a hobby for me after all, lol.
I'm having a blast though seeing how all the squares come together into one piece. I've put together the front of the bag, now I just need the back. Don't know when I will be able to finish it though since I need a lining and I haven't one in the colour I want (don't want to make a third bag with green lining, lol. I'll tell you about it some other time)

Here's how the first part looks: