Hannah's Busy Bag

Hey Everyone!!

I wanted to share a quick project that I made this weekend for my Diva. She is always asking to bring toys of some sort with her when we go out to dinner, and I never had a small bag to hold everything. Needless to say, my purse had become a bottomless pit of toys and I was bound and determined to put a stop to it.

Cue Pinterest and a tutorial for a cute patchwork bag. It seemed like the perfect size for Hannah's goodies, so I thought I'd give it a try. (We named it the “BusyBag” since it was designed to hold stuff that would keep her “busy” when we go out!)

Here is the link to the tutorial...it is AWESOME!!

Since the tutorial is so wonderfully written, I won't comment too much on the actual construction of the bag, just a few things I found out along the way. First,for the squares...I had some jelly roll strips kicking around in the perfect Diva color, so I started there. They were already 2.5-inches wide, so I cut them into a bunch of squares. So simple!!

Next, I had Hannah help me lay the squares out into the pattern that she liked. I did this for a few reasons. One, if she was "part" of the project, she would busy herself long enough to see it finished. Second, it's her bag; it should be how she likes it, right??

I had some coordinating liner fabric (be sure to pick a good fabric...the bag is reversible!!) , so she picked the one she liked best and went off to play Barbies for a bit.

Sewing all of the squares too abit of time since I’m a beginner sewer, but the tutorial walked me through every step, including which direction to press seams, etc. 

All in all, the bag was quite easy to make.  When it came time to turn it right-side out through the hole I left, I decided to machine stitch across the bottom edge, rather than hand stitch it. I knew that Hannah would be stuffing it to the gills so I wanted it to be sturdy.  Also, the drawstring cording has started to fray, so I might be changing that out soon. 

The whole project took less than two hours and has already gotten a lot of use. The best part is that it can be easily sized up or down depending on your needs. 

I see myself making many more of these in the future!!  I bought some fabric with sheep knitting on it the other day, and I can see lots of knitting project bags being made with it!!

Happy Sewing!!

Sharon

P.S. Sorry for the poor quality photos from my phone.  I forgot to bust out my good one while I was making the bag.