FINISHED SEWING PROJECT: The Garden Delights Project Bag

 Almost a year ago I finished a piece of needlework (the Garden Delights class by Elizabeth Designs) and decided to finish it as a project bag.  

To this point, all of my project bags have been totally utilitarian.  I've got a half dozen of those reinforced plastic zipper bags that look like they should hold produce at an upscale supermarket.  Useful, but not attractive. I've been watching the floss tube people purchasing (or occasionally making) very pretty bags and had a bit of a jealous pang.  But I also can't see paying someone to make something that I am perfectly able to make for myself.  

Getting this project to FFO status has been on my WIPGO board and was finally called this month.  SO, when I saw @ElizabethAnnCanStitch had a "Christmas Project Bag Sewalong" tutorial on her YouTube channel, I thought to myself - "It's a long weekend, I will do this."

And I did!

I had a bit of an issue at the start. The fabric I'd originally chosen for the outside of the bag (the floral trellis fabric which is the cotton fabric at the top edge of the bag above) was NOT printed anywhere on grain.  It's fine for a narrow piece like the accent strip to cut it visually on grain and structurally off grain, but on the back of the bag it was either going to be visually skewed or pull the back into a parallelogram.  Luckily the stash is deep and yielded a coordinating paisley print that COULD be cut on grain.  So I used that as the back of the bag.

And the off center trellis bits that I'd already cut went into the lining.  It's not like a garment where an off grain lining will affect the drape of the finished piece!

One thing I will do on future bags is give myself a larger turning opening.  I only left a scant four inches and it was very tight getting all four layers plus two layers of heavy(ish) interfacing turned out through that space. There was a moment when the whole thing tried to become a Klein Bottle / Mobius strip affair because I had hold of the wrong bit of the top!

I LOVE the bag and think it turned out pretty nice considering that it's probably been 20 years since I set in a zipper!  It's fully lined with no exposed seams.  It's also fully interfaced with Pellon fusible fleece, which gives it just a slight bit of structure. Will definitely use this pattern again!