The Parisville Bowl Bag!

You know when a really valuable fabric comes into your hands and you're stuck wondering what to do with it?


Well, that was my problem with the length of Tula Pink's Parisville Cameo that I bought in the last year. Yes, it was ridiculously expensive. Yes, I bought it anyway, because I liked the pattern. The colour wasn't quite right, though. A little too clashy for me to match with anything I had. So when one of those instagram quilty pay-it-forward kind of things turned up in late 2016, I asked if anyone was willing to swap me another colourway of the Parisville Cameo.

Enter myfabricobsession on Instagram, who was willing to swap her Cameo in Mist for mine in Pomegranate. ALL GOOD. And she was even willing to send me a little more than I had! (THANK YOU!)

And then I stashed it. (Because that's what you do with a fabric that you really like but which you're not entirely sure you have a plan to use just yet.)

I finally decided what to do with it - make a Fireside Bowl Bag (from the book 'Big City Bags' by Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness) with the contrast of some beautiful royal blue leather. And as it turned out, she's running a bag making competition during April! What luck!

It took a while to complete - about two weeks on and off - but it's finally done!


There were complications - mostly in the form of cutting angst (measuring twice, cutting once), the grim terror of sewing expensive leather that you really don't want to mess up, adding external and internal pockets (because I don't need a billion pockets, but I do like a few inside and out), and the terror of pattern adjustments required when you cut a piece of 'gusset' a little too short and have to 'make up' the length...or else cut down the outer pattern.


I also added feet, so it wouldn't have to sit on the ground. Sadly, cafes in Sydney are not yet quite so sensible as to have a hook under the table for women to hang their handbags off so they don't have to sit on the floor, or else hang off the back of the chair and be in the way of the waiters.


I like at least one external pocket, suitable for stashing a phone, or a transport pass, so I don't have to fish around inside my bag for it. Unfortunately, the Fireside Bowl Bag pattern doesn't have any pockets, internal or external. So I just designed a external pocket and a couple of internal ones to suit my needs.

The external pocket doesn't work quite as perfectly as I hoped - the strap pulls the pocket open rather more than I like. But it's a pocket and I figure more people won't notice.


For the lining of the bag I used Bats In The Belfry and Tudor Windows from the Elizabeth collection since I started with just Bats and then realised I didn't have enough for all the lining and the pockets.

I made one zipper pocket and one internal slip pocket, utilising the pocket-making skills I learned while making the Shiloh Mermaids Bag. The 'slip pocket' is supposed to be large enough for my purse and my phone to sit there, but it will probably end up being my purse and my glasses case.


Yes, I know it says "This Quilt Was Made By Sel C" but I have dozens of these labels and a need to use them!

The strap gave me a great deal of trouble, because the bag instructions were for a cloth strap, not leather. And I discovered that doubling, then quadrupling the leather that you're sewing through is a sure-fire way to give even your industrial strength Juki TL-99P a headache! So instead I made the strap half-leather and half-fabric. And I figured I should use the selvage while I'm at it... I tend to throw the selvages out half the time - or sell them.


All in all, I'm actually pretty happy with the form on this bag - usually I find myself a little dissatisfied with the way everything fits together, but this one has a good shape and a good form. For the record, I used a very stiff, felt-like bag-making material which is pretty spectacular at holding its shape - but I don't know the name of it! I don't even remember where I bought it!

The last Fireside Bowl Bag I made was with Cotton+Steel and it was a lot more squishy than this one - and I like a solid, firm, keeping-it-shape bag.


As bags go, this one is sharp, stylish, and definitely a keeper!

The Shiloh Satchel: Oh, Deer! It's Gotses Pocketses! [pattern test]

You know when you make an offer and discover you're in over your head?

I offered to test the Shiloh Satchel when Alyssa Lichner of Pile O'Fabric requested for pattern testers for her Shiloh Satchel. It was so pretty! And purse-y! And it had piping!

Four weeks later, a missing delivery, the *facepalm* that I didn't order enough leather, the realisation that the linen is loose-weave and probably not a good idea for delicate work, three broken leather needles, a flat-out 'are you effing kidding me?' from my Juki DX, a reluctant 'okay I can do this but it's going to take everything I've got' from my Juki TL98-P, and an almost-pulled shoulder and I have the first one done.

Whew!

Echino linen, Robert Kaufman's Essex Linen in Indigo, Arizona Leather in Black (available from Pile O'Fabric), and Kate Spain for the linings and piping:

I fussy-cut the panels because Echino Linen designs are so gorgeous how can you possibly not try to incorporate them?


Essex Linen for the 'Exterior Accent' which includes Strap Connectors, the upper sides of the bag, and the pockets.


And then I realised that the linen was entirely too loose a weave to do the fiddly little bits of the smaller Exterior Accents, so I went and used a piece of leather for certain parts of the Exterior Accent - namely the Main Strap Connectors, and the Side Strap Connectors. Which I think gives it just a touch of professionalism!

So, the thing about this bag is that it has a LOT of pockets. A LOT. Pockets on the front, pockets on the back, pockets on the sides, pockets on the inside. The only place it doesn't have a pocket is on the strap and on the base, and I'm sure you could work something out if you really needed it, but frankly there are so many other pockets, I don't know why you would...

And then I added at least one pocket on the inside (and took one away). But more on that later.

This is the lining, with pockets:

This is the bag exterior, covering the lining and pockets, held by my sister:

And yes, that's a zipper pocket on the front.

It looks pretty stunning when you've fussy-cut your fabrics! And I thought it would look ever more stunning if (assuming you use a woven Exterior Accent fabric) you FMQ'd motifs into the fabric instead of just sewing straight lines. But my skill was not up to my ambition, so perhaps in future, but not this time...

There are a lot of pieces to this. Half the battle of this was in cutting everything out, working out what went where. The other major battle was sewing the exterior of the bag together; my 'dressmaking machine' (Juki DX) wasn't up to the task, so I went for the workhorse machine: Mako Mori, my Juki TL90-P, who struggled with some of the fabric thicknesses but slowly managed to get it all done....breaking three leatherwork needles in the process.


I'm going to have to get Mako serviced before the end of the year.

One of the issues is that at one point the needle is trying to go through about 8-9 layers of fabric and interfacing, including some serious craft stiffener because that was what I had, and I'd procrastinated enough in making this that I didn't want to keep going. I think next time I'll try the recommend Peltex 71F (when I manage to haul my ass out to Spotlight) I saw the needle actually bend in the shaft, trying to get it through, and often it required manual repunching (turning the handwheel) to get it through. So, it was a Herculanean effort to get this done.

Exterior on Saturday afternoon:

Finished at the #saturdaynightcraftalong (hosted by @barefootcrafter in the Eastern hemisphere and by...someone else in the Western hemisphere).


Pay no attention to the mess of my workspace. The cleaning lady was by just this morning and has vacuumed it so it's now beautifully clean. (She loves cleaning up my workroom; apparently it gives her a feeling of great satisfaction, and who am I to deny her that? ;D)

The front:

The back:


Now, as I said, this bag has SERIOUS POCKETS. But Alyssa designed it to have lots of space for baby things on the inside, and probably her notebooks/tablet/phone on the outside.


Me? I live in a city, I'm a single woman, and the biggest thing I'm carting around in my bag is my laptop. I don't want to give anyone with light fingers the opportunity to nick my stuff, so I tend to prefer my pockets on the inside - including a padded pocket for carrying a 15" laptop! I took out one of the two internal zippered pockets instead, because I don't need that many zippered spaces.



The next version I make will have more pockets on the inside, fewer on the outside. That should also cut down on the layers when trying to sew the bag exterior, and will give Mako (my Juki TL98-P) an easier time of it!

It doesn't look as professional as some of the other testers' bags (they look like they could be sold in a fancy shop for a couple hundred bucks), but I rather like it, and I'm thinking I'll gift it to a friend who's been having tooth issues all year and is struggling. Fill it with goodies, box it up, mail it off! All good.

And now to type up my notes on the pattern.