I had intentions to try something else this month, but alas February is a short month and it is sort of flying out from under me like the Concorde. I started this bag at the beginning of the month and I realized that I wasn’t going to finish it if I didn’t have some sort of higher goal. Therefore, I introduce to you my Try Something New Every Month for February.
This bag is a free pattern from the Robert Kaufman website called the Sewing Date Traveler bag. I saw it on instagram and I’ve been looking for a different bag to carry my supplies in when I take my sewing from place to place. I thought this bag would fit the bill perfectly. And it does – sort of.
The fabric consists of a few favorites that I’ve had stashed for a while. The campers is a Birch fabric that is at least 3 years old. I bought it with the intention of making something for my husband with and finally realized that I had no clue what to make with it for him so I decided to be selfish and use it for myself. The hexagons I bought on a trip to Textile Fabrics and was just a happy yard I picked up. I had thought about making a tank top with it for the summer and I’m sort of weeping a bit that I didn’t buy more yardage. It has a lovely feel to it and honestly would have made a great shirt.
This pattern started out pretty well. My biggest issue from the beginning was that I chose the wrong sort of zipper. I had a zipper in my stash and honestly was trying to make this bag without having to go buy supplies so I used it. I realized pretty early on that I was going to have to make some modifications. I think my zipper was a jacket zipper (the tag was missing) and so it didn’t have any sort of tail on the zipper stop end. Big mistake. In the end though, I figured out how to make it work.
Overall, putting the bag together was actually pretty smooth. I’ve never made a bag with an insert like the zipper pocket in the middle and honestly this is by far the most complicated bag I’ve ever made. There was really only one spot at the end where I was really confused with why the directions said to do something. They had you preattached the lining and honestly, either I read it wrong or something but I don’t know why you would do that if you are going to enclose the whole top edge with binding anyhow. But again, I made it work.
In the end, I do love how it turned out and I do think a lot of it is due to how much I love the fabric. It’s a little wonky on the inside, partly because I’m thinking the hexagon fabric was almost too thin for this purpose and partly because of just general sewing hiccups. I’m happy I tried something new and finished it. And I’m happy to have a new bag to carry. I’m on the fence with whether I would try this bag again, but part of me wants to just to see if I can fix some of my mistakes. We shall see. I’m betting my mom is going to want one. 