I made this little messenger bag as an Easter gift for my daughter, Maya. She digs it and now uses it to carry her library books. It took me a week or two to finish, but most of that was done in the evenings while I was watching television. That is what I really like about embroidery, I can do it while I'm watching television, relaxing on the porch, or just during some downtime. It doesn't take my full concentration.
I picked up embroidery as a hobby this past Winter after my mom showed me a very old Stitch Sampler that my Great Grandmother had made. This bag was my third or fourth embroidery project. I drew the design on by hand and then used my Embroidery Stitch Bible to figure out a few of the stitches. The Embroidery Stitch Bible was what I used to teach myself embroidery, I'd strongly recommend it if you are trying to learn.
I used a Satin Stitch for the name, which took the longest. It is kind of tedious, but I love the way it looks.
And then a chain stitch for the side and a stem stitch for the stems. The empty stem, used to have a tulip shaped bead stitched on, but after being drug around for a 5 year for a few months it is long gone. I'm surprised this bag is still even in one piece at this point!
For the circles in the corner I used buttons, satin stitch and french knots. The French Knot still kicks my butt a bit. I am currently working on an embroidery project that has about a thousand of them in the design. I'm not sure why I did this to myself, maybe it was for the sake of practice, but I'm pretty sure it was just because I'm crazy.
The messenger bag itself (no, I did not sew it) cost about $1.00 (on clearance!) and the embroidery floss was free (a hand-me-down from my mom). All in all, it was pretty thrifty Easter gift that will hopefully be around longer than the plastic Easter toys that mostly have found their way to the trash.
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