Sew Together Bag finish!

Back in January I embarked on a rather challenging task - to make two Sew Together bags. I had decided to make one for my Bitches Get Stitches swap partner out of this beautiful stack of Priory Square:

And I knew that once I'd finished I would want one for myself. But that I would not want to make another one. So I decided to make them simultaneously. And I did.

The general wisdom with these bags is to use the pattern lightly and rely heavily on the far more detailed instructions in The Quilt Barn's Sewalong. This is good advice and makes the whole process much easier to follow.

I didn't quilt my outer panels, partly because I just wanted to use Katy's beautiful Sunday Clippings print, partly because I didn't want to add extra bulk that I knew my machine would struggle with and partly because I simply couldn't be bothered. There are some truly exceptional pieced versions out there but I was happy to give it a miss on this occasion. Obligation sewing does not bring out the best in me. So I interfaced my outer panels with Craft Fuse which worked perfectly. Just the right amount of stiffness and body, it's lovely and smooth and I could keep it out of my seam allowances. I interfaced the inner pockets with woven interfacing as directed.

Other things of note: 

I sewed down much of the binding by hand. There was just no way my machine was sewing through all those layers. It didn't take too long, was no more fiddly than wrangling it under the machine and is WAY neater than I could have achieved otherwise.

I abandoned the zipper tab instructions and used my favorite tutorial instead. Much neater. 

I sewed the zipper tabs down by hand too. Didn't even try to machine them.

I used an 18" long zipper as recommended but have since seen suggestions to use 20". I can see this would be a good thing.

I have also seen the suggestion to match binding to zipper to thread. I can also see that this would be smart from a neatness point of view.

Overall, I'm thrilled. I'm certainly in no rush to make another but I'm very glad I have one of my own.

My swap partner was thrilled too. The BGS swap was a fun little sweary swap I joined on Instagram for makers with a penchant for profanities. All sorts of tremendously hilarious items were made but, like me, my partner has small children at home. Small children who can read. So I went subtle and the naughty words were hidden in the pockets of the bag, for her to peek at and be amused by but out of the sight of questioning young eyes.  

If you are easily offended, don't peer too closely at these pictures!

And I got a really wonderful package in return:

Again, just the right amount of sweary.

This is the last swap I have committed to for now as they just aren't great for my sewjo. But it was a good one for sure. And that's a Q1 FAL finish finished!!