A First Go with Noodlehead's Market Bag

Friends, I had the best of intentions of posting a new tutorial for my Still Pretty Simple Jelly Roll Quilt this past week. It was going to be a Valentine’s gift for those of you who come back to From Bolt to Beauty post after post. (Bless your sweet, quilt-loving hearts!) Then non-quilting life got in the way and my sewing priorities changed. Boo!

In the meantime, I’m going to catch you up on some yet-to-be-blogged about 2017 finishes—like this, the Market Bag I made for my sister ...

This is the first project I’ve made from Handmade Style, by Anna Graham of Noodlehead. In general I tend to approach patterns with a wary heart. In a time when anyone with a word-processing program and basic graphic design knowledge can churn out patterns, I’ve been burned by inaccurate material lists or less-than-stellar directions. But Anna I trust 100%, and this pattern only bolstered her reputation with me.

This bag is my style—roomy without cluttering things up with a lot of pockets. (I can sew pockets just fine, but I’m not good at using them.) I used up bits left over from this quilt, which makes me especially happy. Those birds and flora look so good together.

I really enjoyed constructing this bag and foresee making another one (number 2 will be for me!), but I have a few notes for my future self before she starts sewing:

• I may have lost some width and/or height on the exterior of this bag after quilting—I don’t know for sure because it didn’t occur to me to measure. Next time, future self, consider quilting slightly larger front and back panels first and then cutting the exterior down to size. You’ll waste some ByAnnie’s stabilizer in the process, but it will be OK. Promise.

• The lining on this first bag ended up rather bulky, and I wasn’t pleased with how it fit into the exterior. I suspected that would be the case as I progressed with the project, but I was under the gun time-wise and just ran with it. I highly suggest that my future self take her time and get the fit she wants. This may include cutting down the lining considerably (Elisabew recommends lopping off a full 1.75 inches!) and/or not interfacing the lining. 

You might think that those kinks would dissuade me from embarking on this pattern again, but they don’t. (And my sister seemed really pleased with the bag.) I enjoy figuring out bag patterns and then making them a little better on the second go-round. The question, as always, is when I can find the time to make one again. Hopefully, it will happen before this experience fades too far into my memory!

Linking up to Let’s Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, and Finish It Up Friday ...