Cultivate Makeup Travel Case

As part of sewing month, Art Gallery Fabrics is hosting a “30 Days of Sewing” blog tour, showcasing their newest fabric lines. I spent a couple of weeks dreaming up projects for all of the fabric lines, but I finally chose to use some of Bonnie Christine’s “Cultivate” fabric.

I’ve been working through some of the projects in Handmade Style by Anna Graham. My current makeup case is small and usually overflowing, so I’ve had my eye on the makeup travel case since I first flipped through the book. It actually ended up being quite a bit larger than I was expecting! It’s perfect for travel (as the name of the pattern suggests). It can easily fit all of my makeup, plus a hair brush, contact solution, and more.

My original idea was to laminate the fabric, but after I read the instructions more carefully, I realized than it would be too many layers to sew through and the quilting wouldn’t look right. I did test laminate a scrap of the fabric I used though (with this) and it worked perfectly. I just have to find the right thing to use it for now. Keep it in mind if you are looking for laminated cotton fabric. It’s pretty easy to make your own and the Art Gallery quilting cotton worked well with the fusible laminate.

I think I followed the pattern without making any major changes. I accidentally cut two pieces for the elastic pocket, thinking it was lined. It’s not, but it was an easy change and I decided to add a lining to that pocket. All of the pockets and pieces make it a really pretty pattern for showcasing multiple fabric designs from the same collection. Overall, the pattern is great and I recommend it for experienced bag makers.

I had planned to mix some more fabric designs into the makeup case, but decided against it. I loved the muted autumn colors in the 3 fabrics I ended up using, so I saved the brighter fabrics for another project. I used the other designs to make a little zippered pencil case (also from Handmade Style). And the striped fabric makes really pretty bias binding!

To see more projects with Cultivate Fabrics, you can flip through the beautiful Cultivate Lookbook for inspiration. Or you can browse the swatches on the Art Gallery website.

Thank you to Art Gallery Fabrics for sponsoring this post and providing the fabrics for this project!