Hawaiian Bags

Remember the sneak peek of fabric flowers a few posts back? You'll get to see them now in their completed state, but first let me explain . . .

Back in the summer of 2004, we went with all of Ryan's family to Hawaii. His mom, Cheryl, got each of the girls a jelly bag -- Amy had green, Cassi had orange, Kaley had blue, and I had pink. I thought it was so fun to have coordinating bags!

I thought I had a picture where we were all posing with the bags, but this is all I could find. My bag and Cassi's bag blend in with our shirts, so look closely :)

Fast forward to a few months ago. I was in JoAnn's for a fantastic sale. There were so many beautiful fabrics, and I really wanted to get some on a good sale, but I didn't have a project in mind. As I kept drooling over the fabric, I remembered that I'd seen a purse pattern on V and Co.'s blog that I thought would be fun to try. We are going with Ryan's family to Hawaii again this summer, and so I remembered the jelly bags and thought it would be fun to make a fabric bag for each of the girls for our trip this year!

I had a lot of fun picking out the fabrics. I tried to find some fun florals that could be Hawaii-inspired without having to have a full-on Hawaiian print on them. And I tried to channel each of my sisters- and grandmother- and mother-in-law to pick colors that I thought they would love.

Elizabeth wanted to be a part of the photo shoot!

I made my bag first to test out the tutorial and make sure that if I messed things up it would be on mine! Then I mass produced the other 6 bags all at the same time. It was so fun for me to try projects other than quilting. I love that the overall project gets completed faster than a big quilt, and I'm also learning new sewing skills!

I love the big flowers on the front!

All of the girls opened their bags this weekend, so now I can post pictures of them:

Cheryl

Kaley

Stephanie

Cassi

Amy

Grandma-ma

Jennifer