Full immersion into sewing made me forget about knitting for a spell. And recently I was re-inspired to pick my needles up again, which is a good excuse for…a sewing project! Specifically, a zippered bag to hold my current knitting project, the Guernsey Wrap from Brooklyn Tweed.

Process Notes

Materials:

• 15 in. nylon zipper
• exterior: Robert Kaufman Chambray Union Light; Country Classics quilting cotton in Teal Blue; Kona Cotton in Charcoal; heavy cotton denim
• lining and strap: linen blend in natural; Robert Kaufman Chambray Union Light
• Pellon SF101 fusible woven interfacing on exterior pieces; sew-in fleece interfacing on lining pieces
• light grey top stitching thread for top stitching the denim panel

Equipment:

• 75/11 sharp needle for piecing the exterior panels
• 100/16 jeans needle for the denim portions
• 90/14 sharp needle for construction and top stitching

For the exterior panels, I cut strips 15 in. wide, with pieced height totaling 13 in. I cut lining to 15 x 13 in., with some trimming to square it up after piecing.

For construction, I basically followed the Open Wide Zippered Pouch tutorial on noodle-head.com, adding an interior patch pocket and exterior strap.

Results

It was really fun putting some nice fabric scraps to good use on this bag. I went with denim on the bottom section because it’s sturdy, and the lining is a light color so it’s easy to see what’s inside. I love the color combo, especially the way the natural linen coordinates with the blues.

The zipper tab isn’t awesome — it’s great on the top side, but on the bottom side the folded edges are poking out. It was a bear to get on straight, so I didn’t feel like ripping it out and trying again.

On the strap, the accent fabric with topstitching worked really well. But it would have been better to rotate the strap 180° so the edge with the folds was facing down and the clean edge was facing up. I was so focused on remembering to insert it in the right place that I forgot to check the orientation of it.

When drafting the size to make this bag, it seemed plenty large, and maybe even too large. But the final bag, at 13 1/2 in. wide x 9 1/2 in. tall x 4 in. deep, is definitely not too large. Stuffing it with yarn somehow shrank it! It remains to be seen whether the Guernsey Wrap will still fit as it grows.

If I were to do it over, I’d increase the height by a couple of inches and skip the fleece interfacing on the lining. But all in all I really like this bag, and it’s good to have a home for my knitting project.