Runaround Again

I've recently made more Runaround Bags, if by Recent I mean within the last year!

This was made for a gift exchange at work:

This was made as a gift for a friend:

This was made as a retirement gift for a friend:

This was made as a birthday gift for a sister-in-law:

Sometime along the line, I bought a pair of clip-on yellow glasses, so I had to make a case for it:

So, yeah, I'm still here!

Runaround Bag v2

I made a Runaround Bag for myself this past summer.  Here's the link to the Lazy Girl Runaround Bag pattern.

We recently had a party at work with a gift exchange.  I knew I wanted to make a gift this year, and I decided on a Runaround Bag.  I found that I had some fabric, but I did have to buy a zipper for this project.

We drew names, and finding who my gift recipient would be confirmed that my stash fabrics would be perfect.

Instead of sewing one row of stitching down the center of the straps, as instructed, I edgestitched both sides of the straps.

When it came to applying fusible batting to the lining piece, I did follow the instructions this time!

I did mention in my previous post about this bag that I did not sew the final seam in one fell swoop, as instructed.

Here's a picture of how I did this:  I stitched up the left side, across the top, then down almost to the zipper.  I also stitched up the right side about half way.  This allowed me to leave the handles laying out straight so they wouldn't be in the way of my stitching:

After that (not shown), I opened the zipper from the inside, and pulled the strap out through the zipper opening.  then I finished stitching the right side and the bottom.

Tip:
Here's how I restitch corners, slightly to the inside of the original seams, before clipping the corners

Back to our regular program:
Here are three pictures of the final project:

The recipient likes it, and several people guessed that I was her "secret santa."

Runaround Bag

Yep, that's the name of this pattern, and it's nice to have something small and quick to make.

I really need a new purse, and I've been seriously considering making one.  I have two patterns in mind, and - believe me - I've researched them a lot, mostly on PatternReview.

I needed a quick project to boost my sew-jo, aka. Sewing Mojo, and this bag is it.

 Here's the link to the Lazy Girl Runaround Bag pattern.

The pattern is actually an instruction sheet, with line drawings to show you what to do.

The outstanding feature of this pattern is that it shows you a unique method to install a featured (not hidden) zipper in a bag, or any other project that features a zipper.  I had never seen this method before, even though I've had this pattern for a while.  No, I cannot tell you why I had not read this pattern's instructions before today!

At first, I was quite bothered that no cutting layout was shown.  I finally wrapped that around my head by making pattern pieces from recycled paper.  I tested the layout by placing my pattern pieces on the fabric:

I also figured out that lining up one edge would make the cutting easier:

I kept the pattern pieces with the cut fabric, which made assembly much easier:

The pattern calls for batting as a stiffener, but I decided to use iron-on woven fusible interfacing, instead.

For the most part, I followed the instructions.  However, I did not sew the final seam in one fell swoop, as instructed.  I left the strap loose while I stitched up the side where the zipper was closed, across the top, and almost to the other end of the zipper.  After that, I pulled the strap out through the zipper opening to stitch the remainder of the seam.

I trimmed the corners and reinforced the corner stitching.  After trimming off the excess zipper coil, I turned the bag right side out.

Here are pictures of the front and back of my bag:

I wasn't sure how I would be using this bag until I discovered that two kindles will fit inside just fine, and make it easier to take our "books" to the beach!