Sewing revival

While I did not make it even half way through that pile of ironing from yesterday, I did manage to sew something! I was inspired by this lovely bag made by Kim. Hers looked so nice I dug out my copy of the book and took a whack at it.

The "Pleated Beauty Handbag" from Bend-the-Rules Sewing.
I used some brown wool suiting for the main bag, some Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy for the pleats and some happy orange polka-dots for the lining.
I made some small changes to the pattern, none of which you can see in these pictures. I used canvas instead of flannel for the interfacing to make it thicker and sturdier. I made a 4 inch facing out of the suiting and then lined the rest of the bag with the orange polka dots and I sewed a little key fob made out of the Denyse Schmidt fabric between the facing and the lining.

If I were to make this again I would trim the edges of the lining pieces rather than pleat them as the pattern says. I was going to do that this time around but I wanted to be sure that the bag would remain nice and roomy. I think that it would have, even with the smaller lining. As it is I feel like there's just too much fabric inside of the bag. I think this is made worse by the large pocket. I did make a different sized pocket than the pattern suggests but I don't think it was too different. I just kind of winged it. It seemed a little big but I figured "Big bag, big pocket". It ended up kind of droopy. It will certainly work but I guess I just wish the inside looked a little more tailored, like the outside.

I will certainly get some use out of it though. Big bags are easy to fill with necessities. Plus, it definitely ups the "fall quotient" around here.