New Snowball Bag

I've been busy this week organising our next term of myBearpaw craft classes. We have 5 new classes but I have to admit to not making anything new for them, but I did manage to make a new version of my Snowball Craft Bag.

This was originally made as a pattern for issue 22 of Love Patchwork and Quilting, along with a matching needle roll (I wrote a post about it here). The original version was rainbow coloured and I gave it to my sister as a birthday present.

But then last year I decided to use it for a class, but instead of making the same bag I made this very different version of it.

Recently we've been selling the wonderful Quilter's Linen by Robert Kaufman in the shop (we have some great bundles available here online too). This has a very subtle crosshatch that resembles the texture of linen and comes in some gorgeous colours. Everyone has fallen in love with it and I decided I wanted to use the red along with some black/white/grey to make a new bag for the next class.

I was all set to cut the pieces up when I was minding the shop last Friday when my colleague Barbara popped in and said 'use the mustard instead'. And of course I immediately saw she was right, the mustard would work even better than the red! Thanks Barb!

Though I did sneak some red into the lining - a Denyse Schmidt design from 'Winter Walk'.

I made the first side of the bag with the shades 'checkerboard' style and then thought, hmmm...

So I made the other side in a colourwash (shadewash?) style with the snowballs changing from dark to light from one corner to the next.

I think I still prefer the first side though! What do you think?!

But what about the rest of our new classes!

Here's a little mosaic of some of the new classes, including the Slalom Quilt (Bias Tape Curves) by the wonderful Jenny Haynes of Papper, Sax, Sten, who will be visiting us from Sheffield. Our local quilting legend Tatyana Duffie will be teaching an FMQ masterclass, and one of my students, Tess Joyce, will be switching rolls for the day to teach that amazing Crocheted Viral Shawl and raise funds for her charity event at the same time!

Expect to see more of that viral shawl soon as I can't wait to give it a go!

You can check out all our classes and even book one here!