Hand Dyed Quilted Purses

I have been hand dying fabric for about 8 years or so - I just LOVE taking a piece of white fabric and making it all colorful and bright!  Earlier this year I made a whole bunch of purses, totes and pouches out of my hand dyed fabric that I quilted on my longarm - it was great practice on the longarm and the purses turned out cute as can be!  Here are photos of a small sample of what I made:

 closer:

 even closer:

 really close, my longarm has amazing stitches!!

These were all made with Michelle Patterns sadly they are also patterns that she recently discontinued!  She has new patterns that are also very cute and her directions are very good.  I quilted the fabric before I cut out any pattern pieces, I also quilted the top fabric with out any backing - just one layer of Pellon Thermolam (Non-fusible!) for batting, it worked out really well and made for much less bulk in the seams!  I also tried using some regular cotton batting with out any backing it worked OK, but not as good as the Thermolam - the thermolam is very stable so it was easy to mount onto my longarm and just float the fabrics on top.  Happy Monday!!