One Thimble Tour, Issue 20: Big Ocean appliques

One Thimble Issue 20 is out! Yay! And I’m happy to be back sharing something sewing related!

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As usual the current issue of One Thimble* magazine is jam-packed with patterns, tutorials and articles. I’ve seen a glimpse of the patterns included and they look like fun projects! I had the chance to try out one of the projects, the Big Ocean appliques* from Swoodson Says.

One Thimble Issue 20 Big Ocean Applique sewn by Lulu & Celeste

I’ve been promising Silly Bean a gym bag for two years now, so I decided to use the applique on the bag. Silly Bean was originally not too keen on the applique choices (she’s not a big whale or shark fan) but she loves it now. I’ll have to make something for my nephew with the shark next since Miss V wants a whale on something too. I haven’t decided on what to make her though.

There’s a giveaway happening so be sure to enter at the bottom of this post!

I decided I wanted the entire upper body to be the floral and so skipped adding the extra tail fin piece so I shaved off maybe 1 minute of work, ha. I also skipped doing the eye. Partly because I figured the fabric was too busy to see the eye but mostly because I forgot to cut it out.

The only other major difference was that I originally sewed the whale applique to a scrap piece of fabric to make a patch. I had chosen the fabrics for the whale already (and lining of the bag) but hadn’t settled on the outer fabric yet but I wanted to get the project closer to being finished.

I noticed in the picture the whale seems to be pointing slightly up, oops! My placement wasn’t perfect but I think she looks happy!

The gym bag itself isn’t one of the patterns included. It’s a free tutorial that I found on Sew Can She’s blog. To save a bit more time I omitted making the straps and just used twill tape (I have like a 100-yard roll or something). It went together pretty quick. I would say the entire project from selecting fabric to cutting to making the applique to sewing it altogether took me about 2 hours. The longest part honestly was figuring out what fabrics to use.

The stripe fabric is a lightweight denim that I bought from Michael’s. It was the remnant leftover from a 1-yard piece that I used three years ago to make these pants. I didn’t have quite enough length for both front and back pieces so I had to piece one together. The floral was purchased from Fabricville last year I think, and the solid is from some leftover scraps of Kona cotton I most likely purchased from Fabric.com ages ago. So a very scrappy and stash sewing project! (My goal this year was to use up my stash as much as possible. I’ve only purchased 1 meter of fabric so far this year! -I did however receive some fabric for free early in the year).

I added a label to the inside as well as a little piece of twill tape that I’ll write Silly Bean’s name on as soon as I can find my fabric sharpie.. I think it looks more professional with the label!

Last thing to mention.. I seem to have a habit of sewing the items that Stephanie of Swoodson Says contributes to the magazines. It was a total accident this time! I simply went for the quickest project. 😉 The others I’ve sewn are The Hipster Bear, Roly Poly Critters and the Adventure Flags. I’ve sewn even more of her patterns though but those are the ones found in One Thimble.