Mon Étui: 'Le petit pois' shopping bag

The green, oh the living green - brings always hope. In the long winter days, there is this craving for fresh green, thirst for new life. I can not wait for my first plants to start showing their tiny noses from the ground. And to satisfy my affection for green, I look for inspiring projects.

This one is particularly precious to me. It is a combination of two designers I admire distinctively.

The French delicate designs of Véronique Enginger are so heart warming - they touch memories from my childhood. This cross-stitch design 'Le petit pois' is from her book: "Dans mon jardin". There are so many more beautiful designs in that book. This is my second project from the book and I keep a long list of more to make. The first one I made was an autumn inspired.

The Japanese quilting designs by Yoko Saito are a newly discovered addiction. The recipe for the bag is an adapted version of a bag from her book "120 Original Embroidery Designs". Yoko Saito is an amazing inspiration and a great tutor. A visit to Japan goes right in my wish list - I have to see and learn more - it is an amazing journey of learning new things.

This wonderful bag couldn't be possible without the amazingly textured yarn-dyed fabric by Haori . I used their greens from the spring collection.

The dark green is the face of the bag. I love this fabric design a lot! I used it in my 'I love winter' pouch', where I hand-quilted the bottom of the body, following the pattern design with ease. I love how the quilting makes the lozenges pop out even more. For this shopping bag, I used a machine-quilting technic and I love the result as much as the hand-quilting. I lined the bag with the light green and made an inside pocket out of the extra light green, adding a vintage crochet lace accent. The super textured green and brown piece of Haori fabric, that frames nicely the cross-stitched design is such a super finding! I chose this one, because it accents perfectly the muted green DMC floss on the cross-stitched part of the bag (the ones on the right side on the picture above), and works well in contrast with the more vivid greens to the left - the ones, used for stitching the beans and the peas on the Véronique Enginger design.

What else to shop for with this amazingly healthy looking bag, but greens? The bag is a perfect statement for my love for vegetables... (ok, certain ones). And although, I love most of the vegetables, I have to admit, the one curly head of broccoli that is shyly hiding inside, is not one of my favourites. But kids love it, so... it is always present on our table.

I have to admit, I am kind of sad, I did not have more embroidering part on this project. I couldn't leave it without a stitch or two. That is why, I feather stitched the seams at the bottom of the front side of the bag. The back also received a special treatment. I couldn't leave it completely plain.

The small linen tag in the side contains one of the cross-stiched petals from the front. I biased the top of the bag with the Haori bias tape, adding the handles tap on the inside and outside seam.