Bible Clutches

Joy! Joy!! After you spend so much careful, focused time & loving effort on works of art, it is a such a joy to see them completed, especially when they turn out even better than you initially imagined they might.

This year I discovered the work of 'plains and prairie'. One day her work popped up on the instagram feed as a suggested follow. Lovely! I was particularly drawn to her quilted Bible bags. I wanted to make one!

Although 'plains and praire' deconstructs (cuts pieces) from vintage quilts (made by others) to create her bags, I have decided to travel a bit of a different road, creating the 'quilted fabrics' for the bag creations myself.

Additionally, earlier this year, with the inspiration of 'the cat bird quilts' videos and her talking about up-cycling men's dress shirts for quilting projects, I have really been drawn to that idea. - - - -

- - - - "Throughout history, quilts have been made from recycled and repurposed fabrics, including men's shirts. The practice was born of necessity but was also a popular way to honor loved ones. Men's dress shirts, with their fine cotton or flannel prints, were often a treasured resource for quilters creating scrap quilts in various traditional patterns" - - - -

I have made numerous trips over months to our local thrift store, sorting through hundreds of shirts, finding unique, beautiful shirts here & there to add to a group that would make up a set of 'curated' fabrics for my original quilted pieces. The initial set of shirt fabrics are within an Americana themed pallet of reds, whites and blues (mostly blues) - - PATRIOT MIX #1.

After deconstructing, ironing and cutting little squares from the number the shirts I had gathered, I created the 'quilted fabric' to use for the outside panels. I am using blue linen material for the outside of the flaps. It is also thrifted material from a lovely tablecloth. The various interior linings used are new cotton quilting fabrics from a local sewing/quilting store in town. All fabrics used are adhered and sewn/quilted to interfacing. The stitching/embroidery is done using a variety of colored embroidery threads.

Going forward, considering the tediousness and time consuming nature of creating quilted fabrics using tiny squares, and for the sake of variety, I will probably also offer some Bible clutches that will be made with other combinations of unique fabrics.

You can find my current offering of Bible Clutch bags here.