the quirky bear bag

I'm not a teddy bear person, so from the very beginning I knew that I had no intention of carrying this outside the house. Yet I was inexplicably drawn to these Kokka teddy bears on orange linen when visiting Mill Rose Cottage last month.  I also told myself that when I bought Sara Lawson's Big-City Bags at the end of last year that I needed to make at least two projects from the book to justify my shopping splurge. If you missed it, last month I made a sweet rhino bag. Wanting to get that second project under my belt, I put the two together and tried out the Wonderland Bag in Sara's book.

Knowing in advance that this bag was likely to stay in the house as storage, I decided it needed to be a make-do bag using bits and pieces around the home. That meant I needed to make quite a few changes along the way.  The fancy black handles have been replaced with a lightweight webbing. I didn't have any fabric in a color that I liked for the cording, so that detail was also nixed. That gives my version a bit more of a casual sixth grade duffel purse feel. Rather than the prescribed interfacings, I opted for Pellon 71F for the curved sides and bottom. Without the cording, I thought something stiffer would serve the sides better and that's what I had in the house. I used Pellon 987F for the main sides, again because that's what I had.

Unlike my rhino bag, I admit that I struggled a bit with this one. I had some difficulties with the panel sizes and wonder if I miscut them or got their width and height orientation backwards. Trimming the pockets and bottom edge of the main panels solved my problems well enough, and I managed to get the panels put together. With my trimming, my bag came to  10 1/2" x  8 1/2" x 7".   I'm still curious where I went wrong, so I've emailed Sara for advice for the next time I give this pattern a go. I'll be sure to leave any useful feedback here as well as scrawling a note to myself in the book.

I'm quite happy with out she turned out - teddy bears and all. I might even carry her outside the house.


happy crafting, amy badskirt.