Christmas Sewing Frenzy Part Two: Mini Messenger

Back in September, my niece married a great guy who has a teenaged daughter. I’ve never met her, but I hear that she’s pretty wonderful. Lucky for me that we’ll be spending some time together soon!

I wanted to make her a little gift, but what started out as a zippered cosmetic bag turned into the mini-messenger! The good news is that it turned out. The bad news is that I made it up as I went, so I don’t have a pattern…or anything for that matter….written down. I think I can duplicate, though.




I made the whole thing out of scraps from a quilt I made a few years ago. The body of the bag is really cute owl fabric!

























I put in a chunky zipper and added a puffy pocket (with twist lock closure) on the outside front.









 
So I started to make this and kept changing my mind along the way. The bag evolved as I sewed. After I got the actual bag together, I decided to make one long strap; I didn’t want to rip it apart, though, so it took some work to get those sewn on. I added some cut-away stabilizer between the lining and the bag to strengthen the seam. I sewed the straps right through to the lining. It had to, but I think it will add some durability to the strap.


Once I finished, I stared at it. I tried it on. Looked in the mirror. Something wasn’t right. It examined it. And low-and-behold I figured it out. It looked a little too…don’t take this the wrong way…old lady. Definitely was NOT looking like a teenager. It needed a flap. So it turned into a messenger bag.

As much as I hated to do it, I had to rip the ENTIRE thing apart. It took about 1 1/2 hours, but I got ‘er done!

And here we have gift #2!