Ye Olde Bag

Ever write a text, email, blog post - and then realize later that you never hit the 'send' button?  Yeah.  I thought I posted this in November, my bad.

SO.

Ever see those nifty cross-body satchels people carry in period art?  Like this:

Even elephants carry purses. 

Well, a friend of mine had a sheet of painted burlap fabric, done in little rectangular scenes of chivalry, love, and warfare; she thought they'd be great on bag flaps.  And I just happened to have purchased a *ton* of cotton Ikea curtains from a dance studio that was closing down a few months ago.  And so this happened:

Hee.  These designs are so cute.

Each one is approximately 10x14" when closed, with the top flap covering the front of the bag completely when flat.

For the most part I just satin-stitched over the edge of each picture to applique it onto the bag flaps; one or two of them are stitched a bit differently because of the way they'd been cut from the whole cloth.

By the way?  Screw sewing burlap ever again.  That was gross.

The body of the bags are just flat - no boxing or other shaping to give them extra volume.  If they were pillows, they'd be knife-edge pillows, but idk what the equivalent term in bag making would be.

I kept thinking, while making these, how tribbles are basically born pregnant, and just multiply when you're not looking.

I also kept thinking, "Holy crap, am I done yet??"
EIGHT. BAGS.

I assembly-lined this project, though, which made it go a bit faster and more precisely.  I cut everything out, then prepped the burlap piece edges, then made the straps, then all the fronts, then did all the final assembly.  It took about eighteen hours to do the entire set.

They were all distributed amongst the household/company at BAM in November.  And I'd like extra credit for not making a special prank-bag for our Fearless Leader.  He's so fun to mess with, but I kept it reasonably professional.  ;)

~ FIN ~