How Much Fun!

I didn't know making a bag could be so much fun! I have been reluctant up until now to work with zippers. I still have a lot of work to do, a lot of things to learn, but I am happy with how it turned out. I need to back up a little...

I had some leftover fabric from a jelly roll quilt I pieced together last year; Bear Paw in the Honey Jar. I decided to use the scraps to make a bag. I wanted a pretty large bag, so this measures 17 inches across the top and 5 inches wide on the bottom. BIG! Great for going to a quilting retreat, or in my case, carrying all the things you carry when you're a mom for two toddlers.

I also wanted to have LOTS of pockets because, frankly, you can never have enough pockets. I made 6 pockets inside and 2 on the outside. In the future, I'd like to try making pockets inside of pockets, layered pockets, etc, but for now this was a good start.

The quilting was simple; quarter-inch seam along the rectangles.  It made it quick and easy and allowed easy lines to stitch along when creating the inside pockets.

Finally, the zipper. I wasn't sure how it would go; the last time I stitched over a zipper it broke the needle.  That's never fun! But this time, I was more careful in my attack plan and more slow and methodical with the actual stitching.  Hopefully that will speed up as I get better at it; practice, practice. I see a lot of bags with zippers in my future! I am hoping to post this on Etsy in the next few weeks and see if I might have some luck with my shop. Until then, I will continue perfecting my bag patterns.