Some Personal Sewing

 I don't get much time for personal sewing these days. As a shop owner, most of my sewing time is spent on store samples and class samples. One of my nieces is getting married soon and she asked me to make some little duffle bags for her to give to her bridesmaids. So all last week, in between my regular shop duties, I made 7 duffle bags for her.

I used fabrics from my stash so all of the fabrics I used are older, discontinued fabrics. For the zippers, I used a package of By Annie's zipper by the yard. I picked white with multi-colored pulls so that I could make each one slightly different. All of the pulls are different colors and while the outsides of several are the same, the inside is different so all bags are unique.

The pattern I used is also an older pattern, A Little Duffle Do It. The pattern is very similar to a currently available pattern, Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches. The older pattern calls for binding on all 6 of the inside seams, which I really like. The Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches just has you pink the seams instead. Towards the end I was really wishing I had just pinked the seam allowances as the binding took the longest for this project. But they are done now and on their way to my niece!

These are really fun little bags to make! The thing I really like about the Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches is that in addition to the three sizes of finished bag included in the pattern, the pattern writer also gives you fill in the blank "formulas" so that you make whatever size bag you want. You start by filling in the blanks with the finished size you want to end up with, then follow the directions to work your way back to what size you need to cut your fabrics.