Another Soft and Stable bag.....

Remember the back pack I made for my daughter? She loves it, yay! But she just announced yesterday that she REALLY needs a matching carry on bag for her upcoming trip to England that she is going on with my dad (lucky her!). Fortunately I had already purchased this pattern but had not planned on making it quite yet!

It's another By Annie pattern, and once again has terrific instructions, but LOTS of pieces! So I spent a couple hours last night just cutting everything out and labelling with the handy sheet of reference labels in the pattern. I do need to run to Joann's to get some zippers though. I have until Friday to get it done before  our trip to the Adirondacks. Yikes! 

Another thing I was hoping to get done by then is a skirt. I was blog hopping yesterday-don't you love the bunny trails you end up on sometimes following one link after another? I started with Faeries and Fibres where I am doing this hexie quilt along:

Karen had a link to a cute little project bag that I thought about making:

This tutorial is at the The Zen of Making. Well then I found this cute skirt tutorial there too:

I have such a hard time finding skirts that don't make me look like the side of a house and are not too short. For two yards of fabric I might just try it. I'll let you know if it ends up in the scrap pile or not!

OK, off to Joann's for supplies!

Happy sewing!

Deb

My weekend project and a pattern review

At open sew at my LQS on Thursday night and all day Friday I worked on this backpack purse for my daughter.

This is the pattern from By Annies Soft and Stable.

Lots of pieces and steps in this one but the pattern was SO well written that it was no problem at all. One of the greatest things that I loved is that they give you a sheet that you can copy and cut apart with labels to attach to each piece as you cut them. If not for that I think I would have lost my mind keeping track of all of the pieces. It was awesome! 

Here is the back of the bag:

I also got the hardware that was needed for the straps right from the site. They have great finishing kits for each pattern. 

The way it is sewn together is so neat that there are no exposed seams then you are done. The hardest part was that you have to bind the inside seams. A little tedious but SUCH a nice finish.

The first step in the bag is to quilt the outer fabric to the lining with Soft and Stable in between as batting. If you have never worked with Soft and Stable, it gives a great finish to a bag. Just like a Vera Bradley! Sewing together several layers when putting the bag together is a little bit of a challenge but with a walking foot it works out fine. One of the options they suggest in the pattern is to take a yard of the outer and lining fabrics and the Soft and Stable and long arm quilt it. That is what I did and it was very fast that way. You ca see the swirly design I did on the photo above. 

This bag has tons of pockets , two of which are zippered. I love it. And more importantly, my daughter REALLY loves it! She actually squealed when she saw it!

I  would definitely try another pattern from By Annie. You can check them all out HERE.

This week is my birthday week and my lovely hubby has offered to accompany me on a shop hop on Friday and Saturday so I'll let you know what goodies I find!

Until then, keep stitching!

Deb