My bag making skills lie somewhere between novice and expert. Intermediate maybe? I’ve got to say, the zigzag tote was hard for me.
For some reason, my patchwork piece came out bigger than it was supposed to and I ended up cutting off some of the triangles to make it fit. Sob! The lining was already cut, so I felt like I had to. Two sobs!
My finished bag is a lot more square shaped than the one in the book. I don’t know what I did wrong. Probably the cutting mentioned above. *ahem*
Eyeballing the triangles to line up was hit or miss. Some rows turned out better than others. I wish I knew exactly where to measure and line them up properly. You can't tell from far away, but they are bothering me a teensy bit.
After I finished sewing the last stitch, I realized I sewed the front on upside down. D’oh. Oh well, the people at the library will never know it was supposed to go the other way. Shhh. It will be our little secret.
I was inspired by Terri’s version to add some hand stitching. I wish mine looked a little less “my kid made this” and a little more “ooooh, nice”. I used Cosmo floss in yellow, hot pink and orange to coordinate with the front. It pops nicely off the gray linen doesn’t it?
My machine was not happy sewing through the bulk of the fusible fleece. The safety function on my sewing machine kept turning on when I was sewing down that last line of stitching along the top. I think it thought I was sewing through my finger or something. Eep!
Phew. It was a process and now that it’s done I like it. A lot. The colors make me smile. The size is perfect for our trips to the library. Check out all the awesome zakka style projects in the flickr group. Lots of great looking totes in there!
I hope to see you back next Monday when I share my Itty Bitty Quilt Block Magnets with you. : )
-A
