Quilted tote bags

Here's the pattern for the organizer handbag I designed.

Here's a free mini wallet pattern- you can make them to match the bags. They sold quite well for $5 at our church's craft sale- they each cost about $1 in materials and 15 min. to make- a good profit margin. I made ones I designed myself but they are all similar.

You can find tons of bags if you do an internet search for totes or handbags.

Leslie, Missy & The Furbabies in MO.

You can use mine if you like it. Let me know and I will email to you directly.

Denny in Fort Wayne

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grammykathy wrote:

Denny, what kind of machine do you have doing the monograms on your bags? I love the bags and really love the way you monogram them with different fonts.

Sunny

Leslie, I've been wondering if your church had their sale yet & how your bags did? I bet they flew out of there. Those wallets look so simple. May have to give them a try for our school's craft sale.

Those are way to cute Denny, but I am afraid I would have problems with the zippers. Zippers and I never have gotten along to well. LOL GrammyKathy

Me too, Pauline. I'd been wondering how Leslie's church sale had gone. Don't know about that '15 minutes to make'. It takes me that long to clean and load the SM. Polly

"Pauline" Leslie,

Thanks Sunny,

I have a Janome 9500 (lowest model) embroidery machine and a 6600 to sew with. I use both embird and the Janome digitizer to do the fonts.

Denny in Fort Wayne

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Sunny wrote:

Thats what I thought too, until I just did it. They are very easy when the bag is in 2 pieces and your not trying to make the zipper exactly the same length as the bag. I use zippers which are way too long and just trim them. My knitting bags are similar and have no zippers.

Denny in Fort Wayne

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gr

Takes me that long to clear off the sewing table & then I set up the SM:) Tonight, I said I was going to organize all the misc piles of papers on my desk. I'm easily distracted, so I just doing more emails, but I did get all the drawers & shelves straightened out - now to tackle the surface! Gotta do it before I get lost in here!

I made a couple of her wallets and they are really nice and easy, although it did take me slightly longer than 15 minutes LOL. My mother really liked hers though so it was worth the effort.

Denny in Fort Wayne

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Paul> Leslie,

The sale wasn't real great. I made 49 wallets and have 18 leftover. I made

20 handbags and have 14 left. Encouraging, but not anything to get too excited about. Bummer..... my goal was to help raise as much money as possible for our economically challenged little church. The wallet sales helped, but at $5 each, they didn't add up as quickly as selling the handbags would have.

A tip for selling the wallets... I made paper inserts to put in each section of each wallet that labeled what each slot's intended use was- coins, paper money, credit or ATM card and driver's license. Folks don't always have a real good imagination and the inserts plus a photo of a filled wallet on the display box that showed the wallet's contents demonstrated how handy the little wallets really are and it mentioned that carrying a handbag can be a bother and these little wallets would slip right into a pocket to keep your hands free while carrying everything a lady would need. Also, the really brightly colored fabrics seemed to sell the best.

Leslie, Missy & The Furbabies in MO.

awwww, Polly. Once you get rolling on them they go really quickly- I got myself organized and first cut a whole pile of interfacing pieces to size and then cut out several sets of wallets at a time (I hate to confess this but with a new rotary blade I will push the limit and cut 10-12 layers of fabric at a time.). And for the opening to turn them right side out I just left most of the top flap open, then when I topstitched the flap I turned the seam allowance at the opening to the inside and stitched really close to the edge across there and it closed the opening at the same time as the topstitching. I would have gone insane if I had to sew all the openings closed by hand. But I really did average 15 min. each.

Leslie, Missy & The Furbabies in MO.

Leslie, I remember you were wondering how to price the purses. What did you finally decide on? Do you think it's just harder to sell the more expensive items? Our school has a craft sale every December. A few years ago, three of us reserved a table & sold items we had made, some from techniques we learned in Adult Ed classes. We heard that people tend not to buy the higher priced items, so we tried to have a variety of things to sell. I made a bunch of those fleece scarves with the fringe on them & they sold like crazy. I also made some cute Xmas tree ornaments that did well & my fabric baskets did well also. I made a few tote bags & sold only two - they were too much money, I think, for what the crowd expects to spend their money on. It was a learning lesson for all of us. We haven't done it again, but we're thinking about doing it for 2008. If we get our act together & start making things now, rather than waiting till November to pull all the stops out! Sorry you didn't sell more, but it was probably a learning curve for you as well. You have time to rethink what you want to do for next year.

The walker totes were $10.00 (I forgot- 2 of those sold and 3 left over), the large totes were $15, the small handbags $20, the medium bags $25 and the organizer bags $30. The handbags were priced at the material costs plus about $2 an hr. for labor. There wasn't really much profit margin in them, where the little wallets had a nice mark-up. Yes, the price was a factor- but the crafts the church's craft group makes are mostly very nice Christmas decorations and they bring a nice price. There are few 'inexpensive' things for sale there.

and porter have several neat bags Musicmaker

I have a purse pattern. I will email it to you when I get home from work.

I'm sure you will find a nice pattern GrammyKathy; but can I just mention (in case you missed it while you were 'away') that several of us found that many pattern-makers have a 'products made from this pattern must not be made to be sold' statement on the pattern. Do be sure that the pattern you choose doesn't have any restrictions as to its use, since you know that you want to sell them.

In message , grammykathy writes

On Dec 27, 9:15=A0am, Patti wrote: =A0Do be sure that

I don't wanna copy just an idea on what size and how to put them together, how long to make the hangers. You know stuff like that. I want these to be my own, I want to start being creative and not a copy cat.

GrammyKathy