Have Bag Will Travel

Daughter dear's first words when I showed her my progress on my new travel bag were, "Mom, what have you done?" Remember, I get much of the credit for teaching this girl to sew, so it's kinda ironic and sad-funny when mom doesn't pay good attention to the directions and has to back up and redo while daughter forges on ahead. I could easily blame my kindle (in fact, I think I did), but in reality, I kinda just thought I knew what I was doing. Right.

Anyway, we had each prepped some of the steps and were planning on finishing our noodlehead Cargo Duffles last weekend on our monthly sewing day. We had chosen our fabrics and gotten everything cut out before we got together. For mine, I chose Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in black for the bottom accent/gusset and handle accent, grey Remix by Ann Kelle for the main exterior, and Indelible by Katarina Rocella for the pockets, main handle fabric, and the lining (more on that later).  I also had my pockets all ready to go and most of my quilting done. And that's where I'd basically overdone it. I had in mind how the sections had been quilted when making my Weekender a while back, and just plain got carried away, quilting areas that shouldn't have been quilted yet. Let's just say the whole lower portion of each bag side is double-thickness due to my error, but in the end it turned out ok. 

We had been talking about making our bags for a couple of weeks, even sharing a cargo duffles Pinterest board to gather blog posts with tips and variations. That's where I got the idea to use ByAnnie's Soft and Stable instead of canvas as the base of the bag. It was easy to sew with and the bag ended up just as the name indicates. My only issue was not cutting the Soft and Stable smaller than my main fabric pieces, so it's a little poofy in the seam allowances. That doesn't affect the final look of the bag, but I can feel them inside. What was more major was the shrinkage that occurred with quilting the bag pieces. I overlooked the pattern note to cut quilting cotton pieces to allow for said shrinkage and had to add more fabric quilt-as-you-go style. Thankfully, due to the way the bag was constructed, my 'extra' got covered by the bottom accent pieces. whew.

Things I love about this bag:

• the handles - Construction was a bit unique, but I love the look of them, and dare I say, my choice of fabrics. I did insert a strip of Soft and Stable in each, and they feel really good in the hand.
• the zipper - I couldn't find a metal zipper long enough, so I used a plastic parka zipper. It's still pretty sturdy, and the way it's installed was very straight-forward (read: easy).
• the pockets - There's a lot of visual punch for not much effort. They were not complicated to make or attach, which was a relief.

When I started to list what frustrated me about this bag, I realized the biggest things were due to my customization of the bag:

• My use of the Soft and Stable (no offense to the product itself!) and my dense quilting affecting the size of my bag pieces. It caused me some angst to rectify that, but it all turned out well in the end, and I really should have known better.
• My choice to line the bag rather than bind the seams as suggested (another idea I'd pinned). Not sure why but my lining ended up rather baggy, though I did machine-tack at each corner as well as between both handles. I also covered and quilted a double layer of Soft and Stable to nestle into the bottom of the bag. That all helped.

And lastly, you'll see my pockets don't have snap closures. yet. I purchased the snaps and thought I had the right tool, but maybe not. My test-run didn't turn out as nicely as I'd like, so I'm still hopeful I'll find a helpful video (or person) to help me get those attached.

Bottom line, I enjoy sewing quilts much more than bags. But I'm really glad I made the duffle, I love how it looks, and though maybe a tad small for a weekend, it is definitely a nice sized carry-on. Let's just end by saying I'm pretty excited about its maiden trek to QuiltCon.

If you'd like to see daughter dear's finished bag, just click here.
Linking up with Fabric Tuesday.