The Super Online Sewing Match: Round Three Challenge

Let's recap the Challenges so far

• A-line skirt for Round One
• Oliver & S Roller Skate Dress for Round Two

And now for Round Three a bag, specifically, U-Handbag's It's a Cinch Tote.

Head over to Sew Mama Sew for information about this bag and a discount code on the pattern.

My first thought when I saw the picture of the bag was applique, I am going to do some applique.  Then I thought about it for a day and decided on reverse applique.  

The challenge was to find appropriate fabric in less than a week and the only place for me to buy a pleather or vinyl is Joann's.  My husband and I had a business meeting 2 hours away last Sunday.  To my surprise, this town had a recently opened Joann's.  The two of us hunted and hunted for pleather, finally we found it but no bright colors.  The brown and black were nice but not what I had in mind.

I said let's try home dec and yes a nice selection of marine vinyl, with a red.  I like red, I can do red vinyl with black webbing.  Now the hunt is for d-rings, rectangular rings and clips.  I found plastic clips in black but nothing else.  My wonderful husband, Mike, said no worries, you look for what else you need and I will look for the other things.  He did just that and found just what we needed in the purse section along a side wall.  Check that off my list, now webbing.  The hardware was 1-1/2" wide, so I went with that width instead of the pattern recommendations of 1". 

 Now if you are like me at this point, smooth sailing, I have everything.  Well, not so fast, only 2 yards of webbing, when 4 is what I need.  No worries, another Joann's on the way home, yes I got the rest of the webbing, we went to a movie and the day was perfect.

I worked on a design for a couple of days, stitched some practice pieces  When I was comfortable, I stitched out a design which I made into a  laptop sleeve.  I thought why waste a perfectly good piece.   

This looked okay but wasn't the look I wanted, so back to the design process.  I used my chalk pencil to sketch out a design on the vinyl.  After sketching and wiping off the chalk a few times, I went to the family room and discussed ideas with Meredith and Kaitlyn.

Then BAM, it came to us, half a flower coming out of one of the webbing straps.

I love this design and it just pops off the red vinyl.  I did purchase some Soft and Stable from my local quilt shop.  I could not iron any fleece or interfacing onto the vinyl, very scared of melting it.  The Soft and Stable was layered with the vinyl after I placed the cotton pieces for the applique.  It worked perfectly and really gave the bag some structure.  

On the reverse side, I changed the pocket a bit, I wanted it to have a zipper in the pocket and then a place to put in papers, an umbrella or anything else for easy access from the outside.

I did make my bag 2" taller and 2" wider, now a bit bigger to put files and other work items I needed to bring home.

Thanks to the great U-Handbag instructions, the zipper was a snap to stitch into the top of the bag.  The tabs on the end make it look so finished.

On the inside is two pockets, one on each side.  The first is gathered like the instructions

the other pocket is a straight pocket, divided into two sections.

I also cut two pieces of Peltex and inserted them into a fabric sleeve, adding a bit of structure to the bottom of the bag.

The lining fabric is peacocks, which I used the feather part for the flower petals.  I love the look of the colors against the red.

Once again the front of the bag

Then the bag clipped on the side, which I think makes my bag have more of a bowling ball bag shape.  Love it!

This was a challenge to make, the design, the fabric and the zippers.  I stitched very slowly as I felt I could not unsew anything, the holes would show in the vinyl.  My patience and slow-pace really paid off, I love my bag, the look, the size and the flower.  Thanks for such a fun pattern.  Oh, and BTW, the instructions for attaching the lining at the corners is genius and a method I will incorporate in my future bagmaking.

Thanks to Kaitlyn for helping me photograph this bag and Erin's dog, Junior for making a cameo appearance in the pictures.