Three Bags, One Very Merry Collaboration

The holidays are even more magical when creativity comes together! We're so excited to welcome our friends Lisa Wilberding and Lauren Albright from OESD to the Sallie Tomato blog for a special holiday collaboration. Combining our favorite bag patterns and materials with OESD's beautiful machine embroidery designs, they've created three festive bags full of personality and inspiration. From playful Christmas details to elegant embroidered finishes, there's something to inspire every maker. We're handing things over to Lisa and Lauren to share how they brought each project to life!

When Sallie Tomato asked us to team up on a holiday bag collaboration, we said yes before we'd even finished reading the email: bags, embroidery, and an excuse to dig through our favorite Christmas designs.

We also learned more than we expected: a crash course in techniques like sturdy riveted handles and boxed sides that come together more easily than they look. (The Randy Bag was Lauren's very first bag ever, no pressure, right?)

These three bags show embroidery's range; the Nicholas Bag Small keeps things playful and lighthearted, the Randy Bag lets a carefully placed motif carry the design, and the Nicholas Bag Medium turns embroidery into the quilting itself.

The design motif we chose, Poinsettia Border (collection and design number 12470-28), is only 1.03” x 5.85” according to OESD.com. It was important to know the size first so we could know if it would fit on the bag. We didn’t want something too big or too small.

The front and back panels each get two repeats, positioned either side of the handle, so we placed the handle first, per the Randy Bag instructions, for a reference point. 

We hooped AquaMesh Plus, centered the hoop with OESD's Grippy Grid lines, peeled the paper backing off the panel, and pressed it onto the adhesive with the Target Sticker aligned to the grid marks; no need to hoop the cork. We stitched the front and back first, then repeated the process on each side panel.

Working the math, the 19" main panel minus the 4" base width leaves 15", or 7.5" per side. 

The handle left 3" of width; minus a 1/4" seam allowance, that's 2 3/4". 

Centering each repeat gave us 2 3/4" ÷ 2 = 1 3/8" (width) and 7.5" ÷ 2 = 3 3/4" (height).

With the panels embroidered, we sewed the bag together, per the Randy Bag instructions by Sallie Tomato, and attached the handles; Rustic Natural Gold with KingStar metallic gold.

OESD.com is packed with cute holiday quilting motifs. We picked Flurries & Bells Quilting, stitched directly onto the panel as the quilting itself, paired with OESD’s Sew Any Shape Foam for soft, dimensional loft. We quilted onto Sallie Tomato's Cranberry Faux Waxed Canvas, with silver KingStar Metallic thread for a wintry shimmer, black and silver cork, and silver rivets for a polished look.

We followed Sallie Tomato's pattern for the bag itself but took a different path to get our panels quilted. 

Load the design via USB and use your machine's copy function to fill the hoop, matching start and stop points by hand. It's slower, but not difficult. Or, alternatively, bring it into My Quilting Studio by OESD, where, with a couple of clicks, does the matching for you. It's faster but has a learning curve. Either way, nest edge to edge like we did, or scatter the motifs for a looser look.

We cut faux waxed canvas and Sew Any Shape Foam into four matching 18" x 24" rectangles, bigger than needed but sized for our largest hoop; easier to trim down than to misjudge and re-quilt. 

One canvas and one foam rectangle went into the hoop together and were quilted by embroidery, one set at a time.

We used a 90/14 needle for canvas and foam together, always pulling the bobbin thread up before starting each motif, like in quilting by sewing machine. A 40-weight thread like Isacord normally goes in the bobbin for quilting, to match top and bottom weights, but we trusted KingStar Metallic enough to run KingStar Silver in the bobbin and on top for the entire project, from quilting to embroidery to sewing.

We didn't back the quilting; it's just canvas and foam in the hoop. The lining covers the underside once finished, so none of the quilting shows inside.

If your hoop is smaller than ours, it's fine to rehoop and keep quilting across the panel until you reach the size and look you're going for.

The pattern calls for one large panel and two small side panels, but since we'd quilted four separate rectangles, we got there differently:

• Two of the quilted panels were trimmed straight down to the side panel size, 11 3/4" x 6".

• The remaining two were sewn together first, and that seam became the bottom of the bag, then trimmed down to the main panel size, 28" x 9 1/2", per the pattern.

Using Sew Any Shape Foam also meant we could skip interfacing altogether, one less layer and one less step. We cut the lining per pattern instructions and sewed it to each quilted panel, right sides together, pinning with OESD Button Clips (tiny teeth grip the fabric) and leaving a gap to turn right side out. We trimmed the corners at an angle, turned everything out with OESD's Expert Point and Press Tool, and closed each gap with OESD's Fuse and Seal.

We sewed the bag together following Sallie Tomato's instructions.

The Nicholas Bag Small started with a happy accident, some yellow silk scraps sitting around the office, paired with Sallie Tomato's Artillery Grey Faux Waxed Canvas and their sumptuous Crimson Red Crocodile Faux Leather. The result is playful and a little fancy all at once.

We picked two designs from OESD's Punny Christmas collection, "All The Jingle Ladies" and "You're Sleighing It," one for the front, one for the back. Design size had to fit the finished panel, or it was an automatic no. These two designs push right up against that limit, but the finished bag proves it was worth the risk.

Silk frays easily, so before touching the embroidery, we cut our lining pieces and fused each with OESD's Fusible Woven, to keep the edges from unraveling. We used a press cloth over the silk to keep the iron's heat from scorching it.

We downloaded both designs and brought them over via USB. Lauren stitched "All The Jingle Ladies," and Lisa took "You're Sleighing It." Wherever the thread chart allowed, we occasionally substituted KingStar Metallic for a yellow or red; otherwise Isacord, since that's what the digitizers stitch with, to keep our colors matching the website photos.

Each design started as a 13" square of fabric, hooped with StabilStick CutAway. The rule of thumb is to stabilize toward the densest part of a design, and while neither is dense overall, both have sections dense enough to call for it. 

Luckily, no one will see the back of the embroidery, and after stitching, we trimmed the excess stabilizer away and pressed into OESD’s Perfect Press Cloth for polished look.

We trimmed each embroidered piece to size. Both pieces are cut to 6 3/4" x 10 3/4", with placement margins measured from each design (full Cutting & Placement Reference at the end of this post) keeping the embroideries as centered as possible. 

The embroidered pieces are then sewn together along their 6 3/4" edges with a 1/4" seam, forming a single front, bottom, and back panel, just like the Medium Nicholas bag. Be sure to be mindful of the embroidery direction so nothing ends up upside down!

Sewing the two together with a 1/4" seam costs each piece a quarter inch, for a joined length of 21”. 

The two plain side panels are cut to 8 3/4" x 4 1/2" per the Sallie Tomato Instructions. 

Attaching the lining takes another quarter inch per piece, for a finished 20 1/2", matching the pattern's original single panel, even though ours is built from two embroidered pieces.

Just like the Medium Nicholas bag, we sewed the lining to the embroidered panel right sides together, leaving a gap to turn it out. We trimmed the corners, turned it out with OESD's Expert Point and Press Tool, and closed the gap with OESD's Fuse & Seal.

We amended the handle placement here, adhering each handle 1/2" in from the edges and 1" down from the top, so they wouldn't block the embroidery, then assembled the rest per Sallie Tomato's instructions.

For one more finishing touch, we stitched out the words "To You From Me" in a small built-in machine font, quick enough to whip up in just a few minutes.

Once stitched, we cut the design into an oval, then cut a second oval the same shape to back it and hide the underside of the stitching. We stitched around the edge with KingStar gold metallic thread, then attached the finished tag to the bag with one of Sallie Tomato's rivets.

It's a fast add-on, and one that can just as easily be created in My Quilting Studio by OESD.

Cut lines are measured from the stitched embroidery, not the raw fabric edge.

Each embroidery starts on a 13" square of fabric.

Seam allowance: 1/4", including the seam joining the two pieces together. 

Cut Size: Both Pieces after embroidery

Seam allowance: 1/4", including the seam joining the two pieces together. 

Piece 1: "You're Sleighing It"

Finished embroidery size: 5.67" tall × 4.78" wide

Margins from the embroidery: 1 5/8" above (meets the lining), 3 3/8" below (sewn to the other piece), 1" left and right.

Piece 2: "All The Jingle Ladies"

Finished embroidery size: 4.51" tall × 5.20" wide

Margins from the embroidery: 2 1/4" above (meets the lining), 4" below (sewn to the other piece), 3/4" left and right.