Welcome to the Succulence Blog Tour! You have arrived at "Sarah B." and this is tour stop #10. I'm so glad you are able to join us!

Bonnie Christine is the lovely and talented surface pattern designer behind the "Succulence" line of fabrics produced by Art Gallery Fabrics. I first became aware of Bonnie and her work thru a series of classes offered on Skillshare. The classes proved immensely helpful in my own work-I learned many new software tricks as well as how to better create seamless repeat patterns using my own artwork.

When Bonnie posted on Instagram about her upcoming blog tour, on a whim I "threw my name into the hat" and was thrilled to have been selected. To be perfectly honest however, I had no idea what I was getting into. I was unclear about what exactly is a "blog tour" and I also had no idea of the "sewing" focus. Of course, sewing makes perfect sense but at the time, I was thinking more along the lines of surface pattern design (who knew, perhaps we would design patterns together?!) The point is, I am not much of a sewer-I "dabble" so this was a bit of challenge for me, one which I was excited to tackle.

I selected two fabrics from the Early Winter palette, Rosette Rain and Trailing Agave. Bonnie kindly sent me a bonus fabric, Spiny Oasis Lush from the Light of Day palette, which I also incorporated. I decided to make a fold over clutch for my project, something which would not be too difficult yet would offer the opportunity to customize. The basic construction techniques and pattern are from ECAB (you can find the pattern HERE) I did modify the pattern to include a patchwork design for the front and back. The bottom panel is made using a block printed fabric of my own design. I craved the block from a simple flower motif sketch, custom mixed the paint to match the purple in Spiny Oasis Lush fabric and them printed about 1/2 yard on a lightweight canvas. The canvas helped to add a bit of structure to the clutch, the lining is also the same canvas material.

I am pleased with how the clutch turned out but I'm not sure I will use the clutch in the "traditional" sense. I am more of a "bucket bag" kind of girl, you know the kind, the bigger the better-yeah I have stuff I need to carry around....don't you? In any case, I can always use a pouch of some sort to stash away my colored pencils or pens, I know I'll find a good use for it!

If you have not already done so, you will definitely want to take a peak at the bloggers that have come before me, this is one talented group. Scroll down for the full schedule.