I decided to make another John Deere Pocketbook in the smaller size. My husband is selling these to farmers for their wives and so this will be the 4th one I've made. I personally do not want to carry a John Deere pocketbook, but hey, whatever sells is great! I won't quilt this bag, but instructions for quilting the panels are shown here: Quilted Bag I would suggest making the quilt lines in a two inch grid if this is the first time you've machine quilted. The bags turn out really nice when they are quilted. The bag I carry now has a two inch quilted grid and I love it.
This pocketbook will have a tractor print for the outside with a dark green bottom. I also have a little green plaid fabric from a previous bag to possibly use for pockets or the hard insert that goes on the inside.
This is the fabric:
First press your outer fabric. You can use just one fabric if you like. If you are just using one fabric, cut two of your outer fabrics from the pattern in Part One.
If you want to use two different fabrics, you will notice on the picture of the pattern in Part One that there is a line at the bottom called the design line. I cut the bottom part in the dark green and the top part in the tractor print. I just added 1/2 inch seam allowance to each piece so that the finished panels would be the same size as the pattern. The pattern says to cut the panels so that the side seams are parallel with the lengthwise grain of the fabric if it isn't going to be quilted. I'm not quilting this bag, so will follow the directions.
Cut two of each, one for the front panel and one for the back panel, like this:
The finished sizes (if you don't want to make a pattern) are 10 inches by 15 inches for the top piece and 5 1/2 by 15 for the bottom part. The two squares that are cut on on the bottom part are 2 1/2 inches square.
Just make sure that any directional designs are going the right way. My tractors need to be right side up!
Pin the top and bottom pieces right sides together like this:
Make a 1/2 inch seam, press open the seams and the two panels will look like this:
Then you will need to cut two pieces of quilt batting and two pieces of plain fabric for the backing a little bigger all the way around than the panels. I just use any fabric I have on hand for the backing fabric or you can buy some inexpensive fabric if you don't have any. If you wanted to quilt a grid on the panels, now's the time to draw your lines like in the link above.
Make two quilt sandwiches with the front panel face up on top, the quilt batting beneath that and the plain fabric on the back. The bottom fabric will not be visible when the bag is finished, so don't worry about what it looks like. Smooth out the top fabric well and pin it all together really well like this:
Be sure to position the pins so that you can sew over them around the edges. In the next post in this series, we'll sew the quilt sandwich around the edges, trim off the excess fabric, and cut out the lining, handles and pockets.
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