Detour Diaper Bag

I found a free diaper bag tutorial online and http://www.MakeBabyThings.com. When I first saw it, I decided not to make it. I wasn't crazy about the bag in the photo. But then a member of Sewing Mamas made a couple of them and shared pictures on SM. I love them! So back I went to give this one a go.

The fabrics. The top is a home dec. fabric, but I'm using in place of canvas for this project. The bottom is a woven.








 Interfacing... which I only ended up using in a couple of places.














Cutting pattern pieces.

Putting a zipper in for an interior pocket.

Hole for pocket zipper.

Pocket.

Putting the layers together for the front of the bag.

The front, with three pockets in the striped fabric.

This was new for me. Putting on a magnetic snap. Pretty straight forward but..... they are a little tricky. I learned the hard way that they really must have quite a bit of fabric/interfacing/cardboard behind the snap pieces to keep them from going through your fabric piece. I put the snap part on the piece with the point below with a piece of cardboard, and it went right through! I remade the whole piece, this time using an extra piece of the home dec. fabric, a doubled over piece of interfacing and a piece of thin cardboard. Then I had issues with sewing the two "point" pieces together because the snap back was close to the edges.... Ugh. I don't want this thing coming apart during it's first few uses! Anyhow, I might add some interfacing to the piece and stitch it again. As you can see in the photo below, I've already been over it a few times!!

And this being the second "point" piece I've made, I actually moved the snap up a bit on this one. Obviously not enough, though. Sew and learn!

It's the next day, and I had a kind of a "well, duh!" moment. I removed the snap, sewed the point, and put the snap back on. Sometimes the simplest solutions are hard to find at first!







So the straps and snap flap are sewn on. If only I had noticed at this point that the strap here is not on properly!!!!! ARGH! I did NOT notice, and completely finished the bag before spotting it. I SUCK! But moving on...

Stitching the bottom on. Lots of layers. Had to go over some areas a few times. The ends especially. The the liner goes into the bag, and the two gets stitched together. Exciting and nerve wracking time. Exciting because I soon get to see what I've created, and nerve wracking because there is not a single project I ever do that does not have at least one mistake.

The moment before I pull the entire thing through a small hole, and get it all right-side out!

Et voila! There she is! Pretty cute!

The back. I can see now why velcro on the back pocket might have been a good idea. It's quite large.

The inside lining, with pocket. All in all not a bad effort. But... I was really, really, REALLY ticked off when I discovered....

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do about that yet, but I think I need to get away from it for a while first. SO discouraged! =(

But overall, I'm happy. It's a cool bag, and I know the recipient isn't going to refuse it because it's not absolutely perfect! But maybe I can make it LOOK absolutely perfect.... I think I have an issue.....

Ok, it's the next morning. Last night, with much encouragement from DH, I had decided to make another bag for my sis. But it bugged me all night and all morning. Why can't I get things right the first time? Over the course of the morning, I wondered if I could fix the one I made. Then it dawned on me. I made the thing. I can UNmake the thing, and REmake it, correctly! Of course I can! So I picked a few inches of stitching out of the lining, and pulled the entire bag through so all of the "guts" were on the outside. Through that hole I determined which strap was on wrong, and located the spot where it was sewn on. I picked all of those stitches out (three lines of stitching! But only about 2" worth) and flipped the strap and pinned it on. I then located the area on the other side that had the edge of the fabric poking through, and marked that with pins. About one minute of sewing tonight should have those problems taken care of. I am feeling very good about that. I hope the good feelings are not premature. As I've mentioned, I make frequent mistakes, and I will SCREAM if the strap is on incorrectly again. But I am hopeful. =)

Update: I fixed everything and NOW it's ready to be gifted!