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Welcome to Sewing with Nancy and the second mini-series on how to embroider handbags with beautiful thread details. Why do we visit this topic? Well, I'd like my guest, Eileen Roche who is a designer of embroideries, editor and frequent guest on Sewing with Nancy to answer that question. Glad to have you back, Eileen. It's great to be here, Nancy, thank you. We were inspired by you, our viewers and readers to present this series. At every sewing event we've attended in the past few years we've spotted embroidered handbags that were made following the techniques we taught on TV. Many of you asked for more options. With that request, here's a look at what you'll learn in this series. Embroidered bags with a trendy accent of grommets learn how embroidery can easily give your bag a designer look. "Handbags 2: Designer Knockoffs," that's what's next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program

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Baby Lock, a complete line of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby Lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and special-effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios fine sewing furniture custom-built in America. Clover, makers of sewing, knitting quilting and embroidery products for over 25 years. Experience the Clover difference. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. When talking about designer details for handbags we're going to start with the fabric and what's inside because that really changes the look of this. We have selected plain fabrics for our handbag. They give an elegant, classy look to this handbag. You'll notice, the focal points are the grommet areas and the stitching around it and then the corners. Let's first talk about the grommets, Eileen. The grommet designs come in two sizes for two different sized grommets that are readily available. We have the small version, which we've used on our handbag. You can also find a larger grommet. These would be appropriate for large totes because of the proportion itself. That's how it finishes. Let's take a look at where it starts. It starts as a beautiful embroidery design. It has two inner circles that have been stitched. That's where you will cut to insert that grommet. It's really very clever. The embroidery has function and it's very fashionable, as well. Here's one of the other bags we'll be working with today. As I open it up I want you to take a look at the inside. We have some padding on the inside. I don't know if you can see how thick this is. That's another way of kind of doing some designer knockoffs because we're borrowing some of the insides with stabilizers and shaping from designers. We have the ability to work with kind of a limited range of fabrics cotton being a very common one. It is, but it's very lightweight and you need to interface it add some more foundation to it. Fusible interfacing is what we've chosen here. It's not enough totally, but it helps. This is a linen, upholstery weight fabric that we used for a number of our bags. It doesn't require any more interfacing. This is a suede cloth. Beautiful. It often comes with a backing on it so it's perfect for these bags. You can cut two 18" x 12" rectangles. Or you can use your favorite pattern or template for handbags, the choice is yours to get a different size. I just used this template, traced on the wrong side. The marking that's critical will be the center of each bag the center of both of them. We have a pin marking that. You'll soon see how that comes into play. The bags that you saw and you'll see throughout this series they're thicker than what we have here. It's the lining that makes the difference. You might think it's batting, but it's not. It has more stability. It's a fabric that's called headliner. You find it in the roof of your car, in the interior. It's foam, cloth-backed and it's wonderful to use for handbags. You may not find it in the sewing section. You may find it in the upholstery section of your favorite fabric store. It's wide, so you get a lot of mileage from just a short amount of fabric. That's right, a yard goes a long way. You cut it the same size as the lining which is using the same template pattern or dimension and you baste it along the edges. Make certain that the smooth side is out because it will just work a lot better. We'll also be working with a stabilizer in the hoop a sticky-back stabilizer. You'll see this come into play in just a few minutes. It separates, so that the sticky part will hold the fabric into place. You'll see how the lining, outer fabric, stabilizer and grommets all come together into a beautiful designer knockoff bag once we start sewing. Grommets by themselves are a great accent on handbags. Add decorative embroidery and the handbag truly takes on a designer look. The best part of this stunning bag is that you can't miss in positioning the grommets in the right spot. The secret is in the embroidery. Before we share with you that secret how you get things spot on, I'd like to just talk about setting up your sewing machine with an embroidery unit. The thread is important. You're going to choose, as we have done rayon thread for the needle. Always use a new embroidery needle. Then, in the bobbin, wind what's recommended by your sewing machine manufacturer in the bobbin. It will be a lightweight bobbin thread so a lot of yardage fits on a spool. It comes in black or white. Use whatever color, of course that would best coordinate with your fabric. So, your machine is set up. Now Eileen is going to share with you the embroidery file and the secret weapon that's included for spot-on placement. That is an included placement guide on the embroidery file itself. I have my design already on the screen. That has stitched the first grommet so I need to not only mirror image it but I'm also going to rotate it so that the placement guide is on the right. You'll see why in a minute. I have tear-away stabilizer hooped. It's just important to remove that last bit of paper to expose that sticky surface. I'm going to stitch color one. Since color one is a placement guide I like to hold onto the thread tail. Just give it a little helping hand. It's got sticky stabilizer. We don't want that thread tail to pop out of the needle itself. Here's my placement guide. The horizontal line marks the center of the bag. I'll place my rectangle in line. The pin is matching that horizontal line. The long vertical line is right at the edge of my bag. I just finger press it to the sticky surface lower the presser foot and it's going to stitch all the beautiful design. It's a lot of preparation. But really, the hard part has been done for you because the embroidery file is set up to perfectly separate from the center of the bag. What it's stitching first are the two circles. They are the cut lines for the grommets. Now, the cut lines, we always suggest that you cut the fabric open on the inside circle test the grommet. If you need to open it up a little bit more, you can but they're there because they're spaced perfectly for a standard fabric. What it's going to do next is the pretty part. There are three options. You could do a sunburst. You could do a diamond or a polka dot. Right, and they're elegant accents that really look like designer knockoffs. The key is to use contrasting thread. You want this embroidery to be seen. We have a value here that's pretty close to our basic fabric but boy when you use bright red or black on a tan canvas it really makes some impact. Sure, it certainly does. As the decorative part of the embroidery is stitching I want to show you the lining. There's an embroidery file for the lining. We've stitched on the sticky-back stabilizer the same placement. It's included in the embroidery file, that same line. We matched up that center with the marking on the stabilizer. Notice the lining here's the pretty part of the lining. We have the foam side up. You'll see why in a minute. Then you can stitch around. The file gives you just the openings for the grommet. Then you'd do the mirror image and do the other side, just as Eileen showed you. But the reason we stitch with the foam side up if you'd like a snap placement if you'd like snaps as a closure I'm just going to show you on another bag that we are going to be using through this series. The embroidery file will stitch an outline placement for a stabilizer. This is a plastic stabilizer we'll use in the bag bottom later on. It stitches it down and then it stitches a placement for the snap, spot on. I have a different color stabilizer here but then you know exactly where to put the snap and they line up perfectly. I bet it's getting close. It's not quite there, but close to the end. You can see on Eileen's embroidery, it's fun. It's stitching away. You watch it. It's enjoyable. It's mesmerizing, it really is. It does all the hard part for you. So what we need to do next is to do two more embroideries on the opposite side of the panel. You can see the grommet placement on the lining and the fashion fabric. It's really easy. Adding designer details with the help of embroidery designs assures that every accent will be in the right place. There's no guesswork for placement plus the embroidery designs provide corner shaping and beautiful thread accents. If you take a close-up look at our next designer knockoff idea it's this corner where we'll get shaping plus design in the embroidery. The first place to start is with the appliqu. It's going to be applied onto the fabric as the name implies. The appliqu design is an embroidery file. It is, it's a separate design so that you can do this technique. It's a pre-cut appliqu technique. It might be a little bit difficult to see but on appliqu fabric that you choose if it's lightweight, add some fusible interfacing or you can use paperbacked fusible web on the flip side. This is heavier, so I haven't done it. I stitched two corners. You have right corners and left corners so you need to mirror image the design and stitch two in the opposite direction. The leftover fabric, you can use for straps. You're not going to have a lot of waste. I like to kind of snug those designs together. On my sample, I have already stitched two of the designs two of them going in the same direction. You can use a traditional hoop or a magnetic hoop. Release the inner hoop or the top layer advance the fabric through the hoop and then put the hoop back on. It's easier with a magnetic hoop for this or you can just screw your hoop, sink it and screw it. Now I'm going to hit the mirror image button so that the design flips. Then I'll just simply lower the foot, start stitching and I'll stitch two more designs. It just takes a few minutes for it to get started. There it will stitch the reverse image so I'll have three of the four stitched. I'll stitch this at a different time. I'll stop this right now, but you can see that you're going to get a reverse image. Then you cut along those lines. You've already done that, Eileen. I have, and I have two corner designs already prepared in the faux suede. Notice that we cut the appliqu pre-cut it right at the stitch line. The stitch line is still there but we cut right along side of it. I'm using that same hoop that I added my grommets in. I just cut out around the embroidery design. I'm going to patch this stabilizer from the wrong side. I place my patch behind the hoop and then I can use that protective paper to smooth it and make sure it's nice and sticky together. Now I will attach it to the machine, lower my presser foot. I'm going to hold onto that thread tail while it stitches the first color which is going to be the placement guide for the corner of the bag. Notice that there already is a placement guide in the hoop but that's okay it's not going to interfere with my embroidery. That's for the grommet. Right, it's just a great way to economize on your stabilizer. Now that the placement guide is stitched and clearly visible always use a contrasting thread so you can really have a good eye on it. Then just place your corner on that sticky stabilizer aligning the vertical and horizontal lines. Finger press it in place, and off we go. Now we're stitching the outline holding the bag itself to the stabilizer and also creating a placement guide for my pre-cut appliqu. Again, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces match; I love this technique. There's no real thinking involved. I'll place it right in that outline. I want to make sure I'm matching stitching to stitching. If you're at home, you might want to stand up to make sure you get a good eye on the back of the hoop. You could use a little bit of scotch tape to hold it in place so that it doesn't flip around on you. I'll just put that there. Again, lower that presser foot, and we're going to stitch it down. Keep your hands out of the hoop. You may find it handy to use a scissors point. A stiletto. Or a pencil, something like that. It's kind of hard to keep your hands out. It's very tempting to hold it down. Now we'll just finish the design. It'll do the beautiful stitching. It will stitch out a box corner, too. On my sample it also has tacked down the appliqu. It doesn't look too pretty right now but it will also stitch this corner. You can kind see it there. We'll cut that out. Eileen, now it's going to stitch the corner. It is, it's doing the placement. It's covering the raw edge of the appliqu. Oh, my thread came undone. That'll take just a second to repair. As you're repairing that let me show you the corner on the other half of the bag. It will just do the pretty embroidery. That's the easy part. It will do the satin stitch and it will do a decorative sunburst that coincides with the grommet. So, pretty embroidery is easy to stitch once you get the appliqu placed. Now it's time for some traditional sewing techniques. We're going to box out the corners, Eileen. Where to cut is already on the digital file so you won't make a mistake. I cut right along the stitching line. It might be hard to see, but it's the perfect size. You cut out each corner. Then we need to cut out the openings for the grommets. To get going we're going to use a buttonhole cutter and block and just make an "X" shape in the middle which I've done already. Then it's easier to get your scissors in the circle. Your recommendation, when cutting the circle is to start smaller. Start on the inside of the small circle. When you line up the bag with the lining and insert the grommet, you get a good feel if you need to open up that circle a little bit more. So you cut out, really, eight circles. Four for the lining, four for the bag. Then you're going to start assembling the bag. We like to start at the bottom and work our way up. Sew the lower seam and look at how everything matches spot on. Even your satin stitching is perfect. Then on the inside, because this is a handbag you'll be carrying lots of stuff in there we've used the traditional bag bottom plastic that you can stitch through with a dream. It's hard to pin through so we used double sided basting tape. Cut it a little bit narrower so you're not including it in the seam allowances and just stitch it down. It stitches like butter. The side seams are sewn next. You'd meet the right sides together, sew the side seams. I'm going to show that to you on a lining piece. Because whatever you do at this point to the outer bag you're going to do to the lining. I have a dowel in here. The dowel is used for pressing because it's hard to get an iron in this area. You can kind of tell that I pre-pressed this but you press down this area to get it nice and flat both on the side seam and the lower hem which has already been pre-pressed. Now we'll box out those corners. You just align them. Match the seam allowances the seam on the top, the side seam, and the bottom. Then, sew the corner and presto, you have that boxed out seam. Turn it right side out and you're ready to put in the grommets. First we have to turn it right side out and insert it into the bag. So here, I have my outer bag and my lining already attached. I've basted these two layers together at the top edge. That bag has a little shape that we pre-stitched with right sides together but we can't give you all the details here. That's right! My grommets come in two versions. We have a protruding end on one side and prongs on the other. I placed a cutting mat inside of the bag. I'm going to insert that protruding end underneath the bag, next to the lining. Take the grommet side with the prongs center it, and then I use a rubber mallet. I'm not going to whack it I'm just going to press down with all my might until I hear a click. I heard it. So now, that's permanently attached. I would repeat that here, and my grommets are all set. On this bag, you can see the grommets the straps, the binding, and even a zipper. But we're not going to have time for that today. They'll have to come back. You have to come back. In the second program of this series we'll showcase all of the finishing details of this bag, plus a lot more. Connecting the dots that's the phrase that I often use when describing what my goal is for Sewing with Nancy. If you're wondering what I mean by that I would like to introduce you to Nancy and John Watts. They took a small bit of information from my show and then connected the dots, in Mongolia. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy. Thank you, Nancy. Nancy, you saw a show with a guest, Maggie Ball. Tell me about that. I was watching the show with Maggie on there and she talked about this program in Mongolia teaching women how to quilt. I thought that was kind of intriguing so I looked her up on the Internet and I sent her a message. She sent one back. We've since become really good friends. She put us in touch with Selenge Tserendash who is the young Mongolian woman who started the center. About a year later, we went to Mongolia. You're one of the Quilters without Borders. You've taught people to quilt who were poor and had no other means of income. Exactly. John, you went along. Yes, definitely. We are always looking for opportunities for photography and travel, and learning about new cultures. I went along. Originally, I was supposed to be a handyman and do some fixing up of the shop they had. But I ended up taking pictures and trying to capture the joy and pride. I think some of the pictures show that that the women do have. This classroom picture that you have of the smiling faces tells the story. Yes, and then we have many others showing them working together which you don't see often, I'm sorry, with women! Oh, come on!

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But you did this teaching, Nancy with three things-- without electricity. I had no electricity. I had no English. I also had the metric system, which was very challenging. But I had samples. They were so enthusiastic and they were very, very good seamstresses so they were able to catch on very quickly. You taught them things, you mentioned about piecing curves and creating unique things. They used silk fabric. The silk does come from China. It's used in the garment industry. As the garment industry has leftover scraps then Selenge has gotten large bags of scraps that they used to actually burn for fuel. Now they use these to make beautiful items and sew. I have to show this wall hanging because it's so beautiful. It has curves in it. That's part of your influence. Well, I like to think I made a difference in teaching them a little bit of quilting that wasn't straight line because a lot of quilting is straight lines triangles, and rectangles. I taught them how to do curves. They formed curves and circles and this is what they've done with it. John, you took a photo of their showroom where they sell their merchandise. Yes, they have everything from table runners to quilts, to placemats. This is beautiful. I like narrow, long wall hangings. This shows, I would call them a yurt but tell me, Nancy, what this is? They call them a ger. A ger, it's what they live in. You also taught in the capital city, which is? Ulaanbaatar. Ulaanbaatar, but then you went far west. Yeah, we took three weeks, by van all the way across the country. We taught near Kazakhstan. There, we saw beautiful embroidery. The women just took after what Nancy was doing. I taught them paper piecing. They used the paper piecing then with their embroidery. Here is another... yurt? Ger, thank you, I have to learn that. A ger. We have four placemats and some coasters. How charming. It's just really spectacular. When Maggie Ball was first on our show quite a few years ago showing us this they were doing a lot of straight piecing. But now, it's gone beyond that. They have a manager and a designer in their shop as well as seamstresses and teachers. They have also been able to have over 2,000 women across the country which just makes my heart full. And the age ranges from 18 years to 75 years. What you have done by donating your time is phenomenal. This piece that I'm showing you right now is spectacular. Your garment is also made. Yes, it is. They made my jacket for me. I enjoy wearing it very much. Oh, you should. Nancy and John, thank you for being with us on Sewing with Nancy and for connecting the dots taking that small bit of information and going there, volunteering. Wow, it makes me have goose bumps. It was our pleasure. We loved it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us on your show. If you'd like to learn more about Nancy and John's trip

you can always go to

nancyzieman.com where we have all things Sewing with Nancy. You can re-watch this segment, or 51 other shows. Go to Nancy's Corner and find out more information. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Nancy and Eileen Roche have written a book entitled "Handbags 2 Designer Knockoffs" that includes instructions, designer techniques and a CD including embroideries for the bags featured in this two-part series. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373 or visit our website at sewingwithnancy.com/2716. Order Item Number BK2716 "Handbags 2 Designer Knockoffs." To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details.

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