My New Slouchy Bag!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Now that we are living back in Florida, we were able to spend all day yesterday with my side of the family. It was so nice having them here. The only sad part was that my 95yo grandmother couldn’t make it because my youngest is sick and with her health not the best, we didn’t want to infect her. But I did save tons of food and sent my dad to her house with plenty of leftovers……and I also have tons more for my clan. Can anyone say turkey-rice soup?! YUM!

Earlier in the week I showed you a pattern I found in one of my Japanese sewing books that I wanted to try.  I was SOOOO excited at how well it turned out that I wanted to share the final product with you. So here it is, my new slouchy bag!!  The first shot is how I’m wearing it. The strap, handle and band are all natural linen. For the strap I used a very long interfaced strip and finished it to about 1 1/2″ wide. Because the strap is long, you can adjust is like above or try it this way:

The strap is let out above and it makes the bag long enough to do a cross-body or longer slouch. This length added with a magnet closure cinches it up even more. The strap is secured by two linen handles on each side for extra security.

Here is a shot of the bag before I loaded it up with goodies. It starts out with a basic rectangle but I tweaked the pattern by adding handles (left out the drawstring idea they had), and added a thicker strap and some more pleating.  The bag is double-lined with Pellon SF101 and 911FF so it’s sturdy and feels fuller, but not too fluffy that it takes out the ‘slouch’!

Here’s a peek at the inside. I put a few pockets on each side and it works well that way. I debated on a zipper but in the end left it out because I didn’t want to risk it hurting the slouchy look I was after.  After I finished the bag I wrote down things I wanted to change for next time. There wasn’t much I wanted to change so I have started cutting fabric to make a few more. I just love it when a new project works out great don’t you?  Cindy