Something to keep me busy

I had some free time while waiting on the fabric to arrive for my next quilt, so I decided to make myself a cross-body bag.  I made my mom one for her birthday and I decided that I wanted one too!  I found the pattern here on Etsy.  Honestly, I was not too happy with this pattern.  I had to make a lot of adjustments and guess on the dimensions of pockets and zippers.  Also, the pleats marked on the pattern are in the wrong place so it was up to me to figure that out too.

Mom's bag

 I am happy with the finished product though.  Originally, I was not stoked about the fabric that my mom picked out for her bag, but I liked it better after it was finished.  I decided to make something a little more lively!  This project didn't come without problems though.  First off, I couldn't decide what kind of interfacing to use.  I made my mom's bag out of home decorator fabric (they call it "duck" at hobby lobby) and even though it was thickER it wasn't quite thick enough after it was done. Heavyweight fusible just doesn't seem that heavy to me, but the next (fusible) step up is that really stiff felt-like stuff.  I need something in between.  I stared at the interfacing rack at JoAnn's for a good 10 minutes and finally decided to get the stiff stuff.  I spent at least an hour cutting out all of the pieces (I hate that part).  After I got everything cut out, I tried to fold the stiff interfacing (which I think was actually called "stabilizer") into pleats.  I realized that there was no way in hell that stuff was ever going to lay flat enough to make a pleated bag.  UGH!  Luckily I decided to buy 2 yards of regular heavyweight fusible for the stash at some point so I just used that.  I decided that I was going to double interface the bag to make it sturdy so that it wouldn't collapse once there was stuff in it.  I had to cut out two more pieces for every pattern piece then I had to fuse two pieces to every piece (I hate applying interfacing more than anything!  HATE IT!  And don't try to cheat and put the iron straight on the interfacing to speed things up.  It will melt and ruin your fabric!)  Finally it was time to start sewing!

This time around I sewed the back of my pleats shut (thanks Aunt Lori for suggesting this!) because the pleats on my mom's bag spread out when there is stuff in it.  After I got the pleats basted, I put the front and the back together to see if they matched up... they didn't.

I had to redo the bottom pleats by letting them out a little bit to make the bottom wider.  After that was taken care of, it was smooth sailing until I got to the zipper.  I don't care what people say, zippers are a bitch, especially when the pattern doesn't give you dimensions for the zipper, pocket, etc..  I have around 15 different colors of zippers that I got from zipit not too long ago, but only had ONE that would even come close to matching this fabric.  I only had one shot to make it right.  I cut the zipper 6" and put fabric ends on it.  I cut the hole about 5.5" but by the time I got the little triangles at the end of the hole tucked in, it was 6".  This made it a little difficult to get both ends of the zipper tacked and sewn.

Luckily I got it done.  It may not be the prettiest job but it's on the inside of the bag.  No one will be able to look at the inside close enough to notice my mistake.  Finally I got to sew the thing together!  I got the whole thing put together, turned right side out, and immediately slip stitched the opening at the bottom of the lining.   Unfortunately my excitement got the best of me and I slip stitched it closed before I tried to put the lining inside the outer shell.  Once it did put the lining in, the top edge of the bag wasn't laying right at all.  I could not figure out what was wrong.  I knew that the edges matched when I sewed it together.  A little bit of panic started to set in, then it dawned on me that I didn't clip the rounded edges at the top. DUH!  I had to rip out the slip stitching I had just done, turn it inside out again, clip the edges, turn it right side out and slip stitch it AGAIN!  At least it turned out right the second time! PHEW!  Here are the final pictures...