Hooked On Paper Daisies!

This week's great gift idea showcases the fabulously multi-crafty Sue Daley of Sue Daley Designs and https://www.busyfingerspatchwork.com/

We all know Sue as The Empress of English Paper Piecing and as a fabric designer at Riley Blake Designs, but Sue is also an avid crocheter! Visit her website and you'll find yarn, patterns, and kits right along side all her quilting goodies.

When her latest collection Paper Daisies was released we thought it might be fun to sew a set of bags to make traveling with your crochet projects stylish and easy.

Paper Daisies is a garden of pinks, blues, yellows and greens with a little bit of gray. It's cheerful and sunny and so easy to work with. (You'll see two new quilts with this collection in the next few weeks.) Our absolute favorite part, which I'm sure the entire Sue Daley Designs team is sick of hearing about, is the fat eighth panels! What a brilliant use of design! It's available in three colorways: blue, gray and pink. If you bought all three you would have 24 prints in just three yards of fabric, how awesome is that? Quilting heaven to be sure.

Here's the blue panel we used to make our first bag:

We built our crochet tote bag with 2" strips of each print. We used the quilt-as-you-go method to sew them to batting, adding 3" strips of the main Paper Daisy print to the sides.

Next time around I think we'll use foam rather than batting to give the tote a sturdier silhouette.

After it was quilted we cut it to the shape of our bag front and back, then added sides cut from white vinyl. We like vinyl on the bottoms because it can easily be wiped clean and stands up well.

Inside our bag we have our signature Aunt Henri elastic pocket made with elastic thread by Gütermann. Yarn comes in many sizes and shapes and having a stretchy pocket helps hold any of them in place. We like to knit or crochet with the yarn still tucked in our bag pocket and the bag flap closed. The yarn feeds out through the sides and stays clean and tangle free while you work.

The bag lining is Riley Blake Designs linen in Aqua. Using linen inside as the lining gives the bag good body and really shows off Sue's Ceramic print.

Roomy enough to hold your phone and wallet, it's a great bag for carrying to appointments so you can crochet on the go.

You can download the pattern HERE

Our second little bag is a zippered organizer for your tools. Measuring at 6.5" by 10.5" it's large enough to hold a written pattern. Look at those precious dragonflies fluttering around the daisies!

The crochet hook holder can be customized to fit the size hooks you most use. There's plenty of room for chunky hooks and a pair of snips.

Using clear vinyl with a zipper lets you see all your small accessories while keeping them secure. We added a long strap because sometimes we like to hang our little bag from the arm of the chair.

We hope you like this first taste of Sue Daley's Paper Daisies, we can't wait to show you the quilts!

Happy Sewing,

-AH