The Story of the Bird Bag
     Released February 20, 2009

By Sheila

Here’s why I made the bag….Mom loves birds but especially loves ducks. Many years ago she and dad lived on the Little Miami River in Ohio. She loved watching the families of ducks as they swam nearby after she came home from work each evening. They were mostly wood ducks with the occasional mallard or other variety. After a while she felt they were hungry and started feeding them. Before long the ducks had been joined by some geese and the crowd of fowl grew. Every day she’d come home from work, change clothes and walk out to feed them. On weekends we’d go out to visit and what a show! She looked like the Pied Piper as the line of birds followed her down their small 2 lane road to the river where she gave them pieces of bread and cracked corn.

Now mom is widowed, and lives in Port Charlotte, Florida with her husband’s 2 older brothers nearby keeping a close eye on her. (She is 85 now, frail and just starting into Alzheimer’s). One brother has bought or built several bird baths and feeders that attract a lot of attention from the local bird population. Mom loves watching the daily show and while especially fond of Cardinals, has a soft spot for any baby bird and loves to watch them. Many times when we call her she’ll tell us about how one learned to fly, eat from the feeder or how the first bath went. The area the feeders are in is just outside a screened in porch and well shaded so she has a ‘ringside seat’ for all the action.

When I saw the Jacobean bird designs I knew she’d love them and decided to make the bag and give it to her while she was here at Christmas. Not long after buying that set I saw the ducks. Both look really nice…now what? I decided there might be a way to combine the two sets into one bag and bought the ducks.

After sewing a couple test blocks from each set I went to the fabric store for something that wouldn’t overpower the design and would work with the thread colors. With my husband’s help I settled on a light background with a faint yellow pattern then test sewed a panel with a medium weight stabilizer. No puckers or pulling, a nice weight but still flexible. The satin border around the birds looked odd with the different colors under the satin stitch. I don’t know why bright colors were called for, but they showed thru occasionally. Substituting white instead of red and green fixed that.

Now that the basics were settled I started on sewing enough panels for the bag. I noticed that the duck panels didn’t have a satin stitch border like the birds and wondered if the duck blocks were surrounded by bird blocks that it wouldn’t be noticeable. I laid out a few to see what the finished bag might look like and decided the designs went together well but the lack of a border on the ducks really stood out.

I went back to the website and stared at the picture of the finished bag. The thread chart called for a light color but in the photo it looked dark. Maybe something between the blocks in a complimentary color might look like a frame? When I was shopping the next day I came across some dark blue grosgrain ribbon that looked sturdy. I decided it might be just the thing and bought what I hoped would be enough.

Sure enough when I laid the blocks out on a table at home and put a piece of ribbon between them the border around the birds sort of disappeared and it pulled all the elements together. I took my time getting all the panels embroidered so I could think about the rest of the bag and how to put it together. It would need a sturdy handle that was easy to find and grasp. I looked at my bags and purses and liked the feel of a woven material on one and made a note to find some at the fabric store next time we were out. Next I laid the blocks out on a piece of thin quilt batting I’d planned to use as an inner liner and decided to make the front and back sides different. After a little shuffling I decided on ducks in the 4 corners and middle for one side. The other would be 2 rows of birds with 3 ducks between them. Since the side and bottom panels were smaller it made sense to not change that.

Deciding to start with the row of birds I laid a piece of ribbon along the side of the satin border to determine the side spacing. At this point I hadn’t done any trimming—everything was just as it had come out of the hoop. I trimmed 3 bird blocks and sewed them next to one another on the batting, then sewed lengths of ribbon between them almost to the bottom of each block. (The ribbon pieces were cut long enough to reach to the bottom of the bag.) When I laid the ducks below the birds something didn’t look right. Since nothing had been trimmed I hadn’t noticed that the ducks weren’t exactly the same size as the birds. Darn, should have checked that first… Holding one behind the other and up to a bright light the edge of the duck came to the edge of the satin border of the bird. It would still work but the ducks would have to be trimmed fairly close to the stitching in some places. Cut a little, test fit, cut again; finally it fit. After trimming all the other ducks to the same size the next challenge was sewing everything down and keeping them straight. Thinking back it seems like a seat-of-the-pants way to assemble a bag. To my dismay the occasional ribbon or block moved. Looking closely and measuring you could tell it wasn’t perfect. Well it is a hand made bag…maybe that was okay?

The smaller side panels and the bottom were attached next, the ribbon sewn, and that piece was set aside. The other side was sewn together next and went a bit faster. Next was figuring out how to connect the two sides. I decided that ribbon was the answer again, that it would fold on a seam easier than in the middle of a piece. Sewing one piece of ribbon on each side of the bag, and then sewing the ribbon together turned out to be the easiest way to get the job done. Luckily the bag was still fairly flexible, or it would never have bent as much as it needed to. It still fought, but eventually surrendered and the main work was finished. One bottom corner isn’t as nice as I’d like but it isn’t very noticeable so it was left as it was.

The handles were a woven notion from the fabric store in a coordinating color and fairly easy to attach. Stitching a square in the ribbon area attached them firmly. The extra stitches through the lining also gave them extra hold though they really didn’t need it. The lining was next and it was a fairly quick straightforward affair.

The size was determined by measuring the bag height then adding a few inches for the bottom. The pocket was made by folding a piece of material right sides together, sewing along three sides and turning right side out. A piece of firm stabilizer was cut to fit, slipped into the pocket then fused to keep it from moving and the ends of the open side were tucked in. They’d be secured when the pocket was sewn to the bag. Next it was sewn to the lining along 3 sides using a decorative stitch. That stitch always looked like chicken tracks to me and has a special meaning to mom.

Her mother Josephine was called Jo-Jo by everyone, even the grandkids. She was the type of person that if you opened a dictionary page to grandmother–her picture would be there. She wasn’t very tall, wore glasses, baked cookies for the grandkids and grey hair in a bun of sorts. She was wonderful and everyone adored her and spoiled her at every opportunity. (Just as we do with mom now) She never went anywhere without a deck of cards in her bag and it was always this type of bag. I never saw her carry a regular purse and don’t think she owned one as she got older. They were always open at the top with a lot of room and colorful. Even though she was an imaginative and talented needle worker, everyone’s favorite were the colorful patchwork pillows and lap quilts that were as soft as could be. Not a hard or stiff piece of fabric in them. Everything was hand sewn and a work of love as well as a work of art. Her trademark was this same type of stitch and it was on nearly every item she made. Oh, I almost forgot…she always fed the local birds and her favorite were the Cardinals. She had pictures or little statues of them around the house. She even had a feeder suction cupped to the dining room window with cardinals printed on it just so she could watch them up close.

The lining was then folded right sides together and the side sewn together making it into a large tube. I left it inside out and stitched to the ribbon along the top of the bag, then turned right side out into the bag and stitched again along the top again to further secure it. The bottom was stitched together with a straight stitch and then it sort of draped into the bottom corner of the bag.

I learned a lot from doing this project and have a lot more confidence at the sewing and embroidery machine. In hindsight it might have been easier (and wiser) to start at the bottom and work up sewing the blocks. The bottom corners might have been easier to sew. It’s something to keep in mind for the next time.

Mom adored the bag and pronounced it perfect. (Not a word about those seams I’d worried over.) It was hard to tell whether she loved the birds or the ducks the best—but I think the ducks won. She commented on the “cute fat little birds” and compared the ducks to the ones she’d once fed. Over and over she said it was beautiful and unique. “Nobody will have anything like it,” were her words. I showed her the soft cloth purse I’d made for Donna, the oldest brother’s wife who she lives next door to. “That’s pretty”, she said….”but it’s not as nice as mine!” (Donna liked her bag btw…a Lazy Girl pattern done in green.)