foundation fabric & the harper handbag (bonus hardware tutorial too!)

A few years back I met Shayla, one half of the mother/daughter design duo known as Sassafras-Lane Design, and I knew that we’d be longtime friends!  After all Shayla and I had so many important things in common that just further solidified our friendship – our love of coffee, sarcasm and all fabric bright and happy.  When Shayla told me that she was designing a line of fabric with Windham I knew it would be amazing before I even saw it!  I was thrilled to get my hands on it before market and made not one 1 but 2 projects for my booth from it.  Below are a couple pics from market of my Hopscotch Quilt and the crazy patchwork version of the Harper Handbag that I made.  The bag was made from all the leftover scraps from the quilt.  I have never made anything like it before but I love love LOVE how it turned out!

Hopscotch Quilt – I used 28 of the 30 fabrics from the line (all except black & light gray)

This Harper was made using all my scraps from the Hopscotch quilt.  The back/sides are made in the black print and the inside is my favorite emerald green print!

For the Foundation Fabric Blog Hop I decided to make another Harper using the beautiful grays and whites that are included in this line – a big contrast to the first one I made. Since I chose the darker gray for the main part of the bag I thought I would use some fun orange cork for the accents. Orange is after all the signature Sassafras color! Since I decided to make a new bag I thought it would also be a fun to add a tutorial using my new Icicle Strap Anchors. Follow below for step by step instructions!

 

A beautiful Harper using just the line neutrals and some orange cork with the new Icicle Strap Anchors in Gunmetal  🙂

tutorial : adding icicle strap anchors

First you’ll need to gather some tools: Your Icicle Anchors which come in a pack of 4 in 3 different finishes, small sharp scissors, screwdriver, glue, a pen or pencil and a ruler.

On the back side of the bag front (fusible fleece side up) find the center and mark.  Next draw a line horizontally 1.5″ down from the top.  Measure out 2.5″ on either side of the center and draw a line – the lines will be 5″ apart.  Place the washers as shown on the lines you drew and mark inside each of the 6 holes with a pen or pencil.

Using your sharp scissors, make a hole from the back through to the front.  The back of the hardware has pegs (for stability) and holes (for the screws).  Make sure to use the scissors to enlarge the holes for the screws so they can twist in tightly.

I like to screw in the top part first and then add some glue to the washer for extra stability.  My glue of choice is Gutermann HT2 but you can also use E6000.  You want a strong, fast drying, metal to fabric compatible glue.  After gluing the washer you can finish screwing the bottom part of the anchor. Repeat with all 4 anchors.  The only other change that you will need to make to your Harper Handbag is to make the handles 1″ wide rather than 1.5″.  Simply cut your cork handle strips 2″ wide to start and follow the directions from there.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  All hardware, glue and scissors can be found on the website!

Happy Sewing 🙂

Jess