For My Sweetie!

I made this travel tote for my hubby's toiletries. He LOVES the 70's colors, so I chose the mustard moons by Heather Ross from my stash. It's from her Far Far Away series. Oh, yes, and the pattern is also hers. You can find it in her Weekend Sewing book. The book itself is a collection of patterns and is presented in a most eye-pleasing manner. I love perusing it's pages. My qualm, which as it turns out, is shared by many, is that while it is presented as a basic and fairly simple collection of patterns to be enjoyed by the more novice weekend sewer, the patterns are actually not written clearly enough for said casual crafters. None the less, I have decided that I like this book enough to someday buy it when I find it at the right price. Until then I will continue to borrow it from the library. I have enough knowledge and patience to get through it's patterns without too much @#%*&!

Heads up! "Bottom Weight" fabric means upholstery weight, more or less. I had never heard of this term. Now, I have been sewing since I was 5, and now at 40 I messed up and chose a heavy linen. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! So after sewing it up, which I opted to do by hand (more on that, later), I took most of it apart again, affixed a medium weight interfacing to the wrong side of the liner fabric just inside all of the seams, and then sewed it all back together, AGAIN! I was hoping that my husband would consider that as 2 gifts. But, alas.....

So here it is inside out so that you can see the inside pockets and the oh so cute Alexander Henry mushroom fabric. I didn't smock the upper edge of the pockets because with the folded hem edges, the fabric was just too thick. But with the firmer sides the pockets are supported enough not to sag.

To finish off the bag, instead of sewing it on the machine which would have created seems and a smaller bag, I used an invisible ladder stitch. I first stitched up the outer layer, and then to reinforce the seam I stitched up the liner layer in the same way. In the end my finger was very sore, but it was worth it. My hubby loves it!

By the way, I had just enough fabric with a fat quarter of the moons by piecing together the top pieces.