You know, the one which states that every triumph has an equal number of disasters?  In this case, it was an equal number plus a few more.  But it’s done!  I’ve finished the bag!

So, where were we?  I think I was about to begin to sew the side panels in place.  It’s quite a clever design in that these side panels have pleats which hold the pocket sides together.  I folded and pressed and took it carefully and all appeared to be well.

Of course, one side is always easier than the other and where one seems to fit nicely and sit under the sewing machine foot without difficulty, the other side  doesn’t want to lay quite so flat.  Anyway, I got both sides stitched in place and took a deep breath.

Now it was time to sew the seam which joins the sides to the bottom, and though the straight parts were fairly ok, that curved piece was the trickiest part of the whole thing – so far.  In the end, I tacked it and stitched it by hand before doing what I could on the machine, hoping that my dreadful stitching would be hidden by the next challenging stage.

Those edges now needed to be bound, and though the pink binding was cut to fit, it soon became the next most trickiest bit of the whole project.  It should have been topstitched by machine but I copped out of that bit and simply blindstitched it in place.  Any wonky bits were pressed into submission with a good whack of steam.

There remained just one last step – sewing the long closing zip in place and however hard I tried, I just couldn’t envisage how it was done.  I waited until today, Saturday afternoon, to tackle that bit.

It was a (comparative!) breeze!  Well, I did have to rip out a couple of small areas but compared with other parts, sewing four long, straight seams was easy peasy. 

I finished off the zip “handle” with the tabs as instructed, and was nearly finished. 

I just needed to make the small dish with the magnetic clips which fits in the front.  That’s when I discovered that the pattern for that is on an additional Craftsy download!  Another seven pages!

But half an hour later I’d got that in place without too much bother.

Tra laaa!

Would I make it again?  Hmmm.  Maybe.  But I’m not in a hurry to do that!  Is it a beginner project?  Well, I don’t think so.  I think the curved seam in particular needs confidence to sew, and wrangling a fairly large, three dimensional object under the sewing machine takes some doing, too.  I was using all the clever capabilities of my machine, moving the needle left and right to squeeze the quarter inch seam through.  I engaged the dual feed to make sure the zips didn’t slip and move in between all those layers of fabric and yes, in places, it struggled to get through it all: Attaching the pink binding, at one point I was sewing a quarter inch seam through at least eight fabric layers and a couple of bits of interfacing too! Would I pay $50 for someone to steer me through it in a class?  If I were a beginner, you know, it’d probably be worth it, just to make sure I didn’t throw it across the room.

Anyway, for now, I’m just going to carry it everywhere with me, to unzip it and look inside from time to time and bask in the glory of a finished project.

I am not allowing a WI Craft Judge anywhere near it though