Festival of bags

I love to give hand made gifts to people, but I do get a bit stressed out at the thought that they may not like them. I've been looking around for some nice gifts to make for 5 year old girls. I'd thought of the pencil rolls and they're nice, but whenever I've given them as a gift, the recipient has been less than enthusiastic!

But I've had three birthday parties this month and I was wracking my brains for present ideas. So when I saw this tutorial, on Living My Sweet Life's blog I suspected I might be onto a winner! I bought some very very pretty fabric from the wonderful Peppermint Stitches and away I went.

I made a couple of modifications. I didn't do the applique, because

a. I am lazy
and
b. I can't do applique.

I didn't double over the pocket, I just hemmed it. This was because I didn't have quite enough material to double it over, so I did a 4 by 10.5 inch pocket with a hem.

The other difference was that I put the pocket on both sides of the bag (which is why I didn't have enough material for the pocket!)

I also used interfacing, because I had a bunch lying around that I wanted to use up. I don't know if that made any difference to the bag. It certainly gave me a lot of grief!

I also did the strap differently, mainly because I couldn't inside out the strap, I'm too uncoordinated. Whenever I try to inside out things, I end up ripping the sewing! Instead, I cut two 21 by 1 inch pieces of my main fabric and two 21 by 1 inch pieces of my lining material. I turned each long edge in and ironed, then I put one strap of main together with one strap of the lining material and top-stitched along each long edge.

I've made 4 - one for each of the birthday girls and one for my daughter. I think they're really nice - I'm planning on making one more for my son and another for myself, to put my knitting and crochet in. I just have to work out which is my favourite!