A bag for my sewing projects.

[twocheeseplease.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I finally finished this! I had so much fun making it, although I probably should have started my first bag-making experience by following a tutorial. Instead I just eyeballed a few of my favourite bags (I should note that I have a LOT of handbags! But I generally only use one at a time until I get bored, then move on to another in my stash.) and amalgamated all of my favourite features. The shape of a cute bucket-bag I got from Universal Studios in Japan, the gussetted pocket of my recent handbag cast-off, the perfect wristlet-sized straps from, umm... yet another cute bucket bag I have. I told you I had too many bags! But together I think my addiction and me have forged the perfect bag!

I made it to match my rainbow patchwork scarf, but I didn't want it too large so I didn't have enough room to include every print. It took me about an hour to 20 prints, from 28. I can hear you laughing now, but even though I only had to cut 8 prints from the rainbow it was still very hard to choose!

And because you're dying to see the gusset pocket that I'm really very proud of, here is the inside of the bag in a lovely action shot:

Although you can't really see it clearly in this picture (I scaled the size down. There is a larger size on my Flickr page if you wanted to follow the link from my own journal. It's worksafe over there.), the lining print is just so cute. It's got one of my favourite colours right now (coral / watermelon / salmon) and a sweet sea-green with cute flowers.

There's the gusset pocket for all my threads, my scissors fit neatly in the flat pocket (I just had them poking out like this for the photo shoot so you could actually see them!) and it's big enough to hold a ball of wool and a knitting project, but right now it's perfect for my slipper pieces.

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Overall, this bag took me about two days to make, but it's my very first bag ever made, and the 4am starts leave me in a rather comatose state come 3pm. I work for about 10 minutes, then spend 15 minutes staring into space, recharging, before I'm ready for another 10 minutes of busy activity. I'm really happy with how it turned out, though! It's the perfect size for me (I'll probably be making them a smidge bigger when making them as actual handbags), I'm still digging the rainbow patchwork, and I really like how the cordoroy and cotton quilted onto the wool batting worked out for stability. I didn't want to have to mess around learning how to deal with interfacing, and the wool batting worked just as well I think! The bag stands up on it's own (oh yeah, did I mention it has boxed corners? Very posh, I know!) and it stays open on its own so I can set it down and use it as a basket as I stitch.

There are a few things I would do different next time!

• Bigger seam allowances. I'm chronic with that. Tiny, tiny, tiny seam allowances. Like, 0.5 centimetre seam allowances. Makes working with thick fabric (like cordoroy with a batting backing) very hard.

• I'm not so sure about the print with the rainbow patchwork. I think perhaps there are enough prints already and the print on the lining might make it a little busy. I think next time I will use a solid colour, perhaps a nice soft one. What do you guys think?

• But most importantly, I guess I need to toughen up on my measuring! Take this for example:

Eek!