Sassy bag!

If you follow me on Instagram or Tumblr (and I'd love it if you would!), you've likely noticed a recent, um, uptick in the number of photos I post of my beloved Maine Coon kitty, Sassy.

I swear: I have a good reason for this foray into crazy-cat-lady territory. 

It seems that we have a crazy-cat-lady-in-training in my friends' daughter, T. This kid is obsessed with Sassy. I can't tell you how glad I am that someone else finally recognizes that Sassy deserves to be worshipped. 

So I decided the holidays were a perfect time to treat T to a little gift that would feed her feline fetish: a tote bag with Sassy's face on it!

For this project, I worked with Blumenthal Craft brand inkjet printable PhotoFabric:

I lucked out and found this on clearance for just $2.97 at a craft store, but it's also sold on Amazon.

(And for those who know me, the brand name here is merely a coincidence; I am unfortunately not connected in any way to this Blumenthal Craft empire.) 

This is such a simple method for transferring photography onto a fabric project, and I think it gives really great results:

I sewed a simple square cotton tote bag, cut my printed Sassy image out with some pinking shears and attached it to the tote with a little orange chain stitch. I live for chain stitch, so here's a little chain stitch porn for you:

But I didn't just give T an empty tote! Stay tuned for details about the handcrafted goodies that were inside...