I think it’s time for a little game: Guess the mess. Here you see a whole lot of fabric and now you have to guess on which project I’m working on…..

….it’s the Amy Butler Weekender Travel Bag, and the mess in the picture is the fabric that took me 3,5 hours to cut. Argh. If I’ll every make this bag again somebody else has to do the cutting, seriously. Does anybody else hate cutting as much as I do? Anyway, I hope I’ll finish the outer shell of the bag this weekend and then make the lining next week. Now I have to pack up my little sewing machine and get it over to Tony’s apartment and start sewing.  I’m still not sure if I used the right interfacing and my machine is acting kind of weird lately, so wish me luck.

Oh wonder, I made another bag. At least this time it isn’t for me but a friend of mine who is turning 33 today. It was kind of hard to choose a pattern and fabric because she has a totally different style and she really likes small bags. I’ll never understand the concept of tiny bags, but then again not everyone is a pack rat like me :)

I used the Jenny Bag pattern, but didn’t add the outer pocket and I sandwiched the handles between the outer fabric and the lining, which looks a lot neater. The fabric is from Ikea and even though it’s a really large print it works quite well with this type of bag.

In return she made a fabulous zucchini cake, and before you make a face, it’s kind like carrot cake and really yummy! 

If you are in the mood for some bag making, check out my “Make Something” posts about bags here and here.

I made another item from my Project List - the 1 Hour Bag, well kind of, because it turned out nothing like the original one and it took longer than an hour. If you want to make one yourself, check out Jodie’s fabulous tutorial and while you’re over there, drool over her amazing selvage frock.

It was so much fun sewing this bag, you wouldn’t believe it! It started out with a boring day at work where I, instead of working, drew the pattern for the bag. (My boss will never read this blog so I guess it’s ok to say so :) Back home I was going through my stash and found some pretty turquoise corduroy I bought a while back, and from this point on I just improvised. I appliqued some circles to the front and stitched two circles by hand, one with embroidery floss the other with wool. For the back I actually used the left side of the fabric and while I was staring at it, I felt kind of brave and tried some free motion quilting.

After sewing in the lining it didn’t quite fit, because I used a some polar fleece as interfacing, but I liked how it looked like binding and so I went with it.  On to the handles. I only bought half a meter so I didn’t have enough length in the grain for the handles, and since the fabric is super stretchy I stuck for a moment. But the god of improvisation was kind to me that day, so I just cut 4 strips and sewed them together changing from left to the right side of the fabric. 

At this point it totally looked like a hippie bag and something I would have loved back when I was 17. Again I did some free motion quilting, which will come apart pretty soon because the tension was way off, added two buttons and that was that: my totally improvised, “I’m 17, going to Ibiza and do a lot of *beep*, because I’m a hippie” 1 Hour Bag.

I really love this bag just because making it was so much fun. It was so liberating not trying to be perfect and going with the flow, that for a brief moment I thought this is the way I will make every project from now on. But I know myself too well to realize this isn’t possible. But I will try not to overthink everything I make, that’s the first step, right?

I thought I post about something else than the quilt for a change. These are actually the third and fourth bag I ever made made. Back than I was looking for a messenger bag pattern for Tony and found The Mischievous Gnome Messenger Bag from Sew Liberated. Loved it, ordered it and found out he didn’t like it. Great. But since a girl can’t have enough bags I made two of them for myself.

The bag has and inner zipper pocket, two pockets on the front, one at the back and a wrap around button closure. The first time I sticked to the pattern, the second time I made the whole thing shorter, made the handles longer and didn’t add the back pocket and the button (mistake).

Version 1 (on the left): Some wool fabric for the outside, orange Ikea fabric for the outside bags and some dotted Ikea fabric for the lining. It’s a great size for my MacBook and some magazines, but since I tend to stuff some extra clothes into my bags, I don’t like how the bag gets out of shape.

Version 2 (on the right): I used some leather look-alike fabric and made it stiffer with a double layer of Freudenberg S 250 iron-on interfacing. For the inside I used yellow corduroy. I really, really love the leathery look of this bag and since I made the handle longer it’s much more comfortable to carry around over the shoulder.

Even more details.

Overall it’s a great pattern and really easy to follow, and if you don’t tend to carry your whole household around like I do, I can highly recommend it! My favorite parts are definitely the applique on the flap and the wrap around button.

Also check out the Emmeline Apron pattern from Sew Liberated it’s sooo pretty. Such a shame that I don’t wear aprons, maybe I have to cook more so I can justify making one.

I hope you all had a great Christmas, I surely did even though probably not in the traditional sense. Tony was over at his mother’s house for two days, so I had time to finally make this little bag I was thinking about the last couple of days.

The pattern is the Taxi Tote from Anna Maria Horner’s “Seams to Me” and the instructions are really easy to follow. I would definitely say this would be a great bag for beginners. I really like the book and will probably make some more projects from it soon. It’s beautifully design, well written and covers projects from storage cubes, bags, quilts, aprons over to pillows and skirts. 

And now on to the Taxi Tote. I didn’t want to use only one fabric, so this was a good project to try out the foundation piecing technique. I used some heavy weight home decor fabric from Ikea and fused even heavier interfacing to the back of it. Then I used this as my foundation for the outer fabrics. The brown and green fabric are a wool/synthetic mix, the yellow is corduroy and the white/red one is a bedcover from Ikea. I added a contrasting straight stitch to the yellow and green stripe and now I just have to get another button because I don’t really like the one I used but couldn’t find a better one in my stash that was big enough. 

I kind of like how the tote turned out, the only thing I don’t like is the binding. First of all the bedcover is a really low quality fabric and was a pain in the ass to work with (I don’t know how someone can sleep in this) and second I messed up. If I ever do this bag again, I’ll definitely sew on the binding my hand.

Check out more projects from the book from other crafters: Seams to me flickr group.

Bonus shot: The dessert my mom made yesterday - Panna Cotta with fresh figs and a sauce made with cinnamon, orange juice, pin nuts and cranberries. It was delicious!

I don’t know if any of you know Katie Henry and Made by Hank and if not you should definitely check her out, because she really inspired me to make my own bags with my own pattern.

So about a month ago on a Friday I came home, after a really crappy and stressful day at work, and started drawing my own pattern. I knew that I wanted it big enough for at least a book, my MacBook and my Yoga clothes and that I wanted to use piping, but that was about it. I actually just wanted to make the pattern and maybe cut the fabric, but then I got into some kind of sewing flow/high (ha, who said you only get this if you do sports!) and the next time I checked the clock, it was 3:30 am and I was very tired but also extremely happy.

I used two different colors of wool/felt fabric (actually the same I used for my Cozy on the Couch Pillow) and some Ikea fabric for the lining. I wasn’t sure what kind of interfacing I should use and because I wasn’t really thrilled with the papery feel of the last projects I made, I decided to only use iron-on interfacing on the outside and some polar fleece for the lining. I can definitely say that it’s great combination for this type of bag. It gives the perfect amount of sturdiness without being stiff and adds a nice volume to the fabric.

The bag has two inner pockets with the same bias binding I used for the piping, and I used an old H&M belt for the handle. To finish it off, I did some top stithing on the flap in the same color the belt is.

So happy, happy, joy, joy, I made the first I-truly-did-everything-myself bag, and because Made by Hank inspired me I call this bag “The Hank Bag”.