What happens when Erica Arndt meets Lewis & Irene???
…A beautiful Retro Train Case of course!!
Well it’s a heatwave here in Manchester, UK and what better time to talk about this Retro Train Case pattern from one of my favourite designers, Erica Arndt.
Erica has a full YouTube tutorial for this pattern if you want a video guide to go with your detailed pattern. She’s a great teacher and inspiring designer and I cannot WAIT for the day she finally sells her fabrics to the UK!!
A year or two ago I bought a few fat eighth bundles of Lewis & Irene’s Hannah’s Flowers collection as well as some yardage of a few of the designs for a quilt. Once I had cut the quilt out I ended up with a lot of surplus and as this is one of the most perfect fabric collections in existence, in my humble opinion, I have made a few other projects with the leftovers as I never want the magic to end!
The outside is made entirely from the main print in the collection that is coloured 3 ways; brown, pink and cream.
I would love to say I had thought ahead enough to pattern match the carry handle to top panel but I didn’t and by pure magic it happened anyway!
This is one of the best angles to show the 3 colours. As you can see the top panel is brown (as is the bottom panel), not the most chocolate-y brown, it’s almost like it has a touch of taupe in it. Then the difference between the pink and cream backgrounds is very subtle.
Can you tell which is which?!
The cream is just off-white, I think, and I’ve used it for beneath the zip. Then above the zip and for the back panel is the pink which is mottled with dashes of the cream. These colours are all so perfect, delicate, feminine and so so pretty.
I added a handmade label to the outside and even a love-heart screw-in rivet. The only change I made to Erica’s pattern was that I left enough overhang of the above and below zipper panels so I could fold them in on themselves to encase the zip as I don’t like seeing the raw edges of zips.
Now on to the inside. Just look at that print, I am totally in love!
For the main binding I used a brown gingham polycotton I have had for years and only ever seem to use for binding because I love brown and I love how cutting a straight gingham on the bias turns it into a diagonal gingham…probably not the technical names for them but hey ho! Maybe the chocolate brown gingham helps you see the difference in the Hannah’s Flowers brown. Perfection!
I add labels to everything I make and the last few years, when designing my labels for Contrado, I have added the year I made the item so when I look back I can remember how much of a spree I went on with my crafting in certain years! (This label is the 50×50 flat label.) It’s been funny because when I’ve gifted items, some of them were made a full year or more before they were even gifted – that’s how prepared I can be at times!
I definitely want to make this pattern again and one other change I am thinking of making is adding the final binding to the outside. When I was sewing it on, obviously the bag was inside out, and I loved how sharp everything looked. Then when I turned the bag right way out I missed the pointy shape the binding added! The bag is still so gorgeous but sometimes when you make things you find little alterations you would prefer and that justifies yet another creation in your future doesn’t it! Maybe it’ll be another Hannah’s Flowers version…I certainly have enough of it!
Erica’s patterns are always so well written and explained and she is only ever an email or a message away if you need her for anything. I have made so many of her bag, cross-stitch and quilt patterns now. She offers a load of them free either through her YouTube videos of via her blog, she’s very generous. Paid patterns are available via her website and there are plenty to choose from.
I’ll be detailing another of Erica’s bag patterns in a few months as I made a few of them for gifts last Christmas as well as one for myself – well it would be rude not to!
In the meantime I’ll leave you with one last image of this beauty and a few questions…
Have you ever made any bags?
Do you have a favourite designer you would like to recommend?
What do you think about the Hannah’s Flowers fabric collection?
Happy stitching everyone x
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