A valiant save for a pretty overnight bag!

How do you use those lovely home decor prints that are everywhere?  Every fabric store I enter has eons of them...so many pretty colors, textures, and the heft is just awesome, especially if you want to make something that will withstand some wear and possible tear...enter the overnight bag!

This is a cute little pattern from Simplicity, 2274, to be precise.  I've made it before for the men in my family.  The girls were a little chuffed to say the least.  Where I spied this pretty home decor print on Fabric Mart's site, I knew it had to be and now one lucky lady would get her own bag!

For the guys, I used a similar pattern for the bag anyway: Simplicity 2600.

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And here are their bags!  

For the guy's bags, I used all cotton.  I choose a theme based on their interests.  Air force for Andrew who is in the AF reserves, Kevin, an avid outdoors-man and Dr of wildlife conservation, Daniel who simply likes space, and Kevin is a full-blown star wars nut!  Guys aren't all that careful with their stuff and I wanted washable fabrics for their bags.  Plus, these can double as a gym bag if needed.

I wasn't something different for the next go around with the ladies and up popped Home Decor fabric!
Home decor fabric is lovely to work with.  I used two yards of it for the bag and enough left over to make a little matching clutch that you'll see in a few photos below this one, to use for whatever the lucky daughter or daughter-in-law likes.  The colors are vibrant and the design is woven into the fabric.

This bag holds a LOT!!!

I followed the directions for the bag pretty much as written but since it is a bag I am creating, I chose to eliminate a few of the outside pockets and to line the insides with a pretty orange lining I also purchased from Fabric Mart.  It sort of gives a satiny feel to the inside of a bag, which in my mind makes it girly and sort of glamorous!  Oh, and I almost forgot, I did a few rows of quilting in parallel and perpendicular lines to anchor all the layers together.

When working with home decor fabric, I like to serge all the edges prior to assembly.  So, I layered each piece with the the batting, lining, and of course my pretty geometric pieces and serged the edges. I just find this makes life easier when making a bag such as this.  If you don't own a serger, a simple zig-zag stitch will do the trick.  

The contrast fabric on the handles was from my stash and is a simple cotton print that highlights the green.

There is batting between the outer fabric and lining and as well as all these fabrics sewed, I had zero issues.  I did use my walking foot which I love to stitch the layers together.  Don't have one?  No worries, you can still get a great result when sewing home decor fabric, you'll just want to pin carefully and abundantly to match your edges and keep them straight and even.

I wanted to highlight the contrast on the bags and decided to use a decorative stitch to attach the straps to the bag.  How fun!

I even used the same decorative stitch to hold down the zipper facing.

So, what about the save?  I had a major, major mistake that I didn't realize until I was 100 percent finished with the bag.  I had one of the handles twisted!  How on earth did I do that?  I carefully pinned those things and checked them twice but somehow, someway I was foiled and ^*%$#!, I had what could become a three-hour unpicking session....deep breath......

There just had to be a way to fix this and yes!  The handles have a seam in the middle, I unpicked the binding about 12 inches worth, unpicked the seams on the both sides of the handle and also the seams on the binding.  Another deep breath and I untwisted the seams, sewed them together the correct way and put the entire thing back together, flawlessly in about 45 minutes.....disaster averted!  My sewing fairy godmother was looking out for me today!!!

I enjoyed making this bag!  Using home decor fabric might be something you hadn't thought of but try using it in unconventional ways.  Jackets/vests,

 pants--DD2 loves to refer to these as my 'drapery' pants,

 

skirts, purses, totes, overnight bags, and even home decor items are all great uses for this fabric!  

Thanks for reading!

Sue

What sewing disasters have you averted lately?  I'd love to hear about it!