An Open Wide bag

With all my Christmas sewing out of the way I thought it was time that I made myself a present! I have had this gorgeous Chinese Oriental Flower fabric for a few months (thank you Sue) and have been wanting to make it into a bag.

One of these Open Wide bags seemed to be the perfect match.

I had not used this pattern before so, being a good girl, I read through the instructions before I started! There are a lot of them and it all sounded rather complicated but once you get started they are extremely well written and easy to follow.

I made the medium sized bag and used Soft and Stable as the wadding.

I was worried about adding the end pieces and sewing round the curve but they set in perfectly. Adding the binding was not quite so easy. I hand stitched the reverse of the binding - machining round seemed like a step too far and anyway, I prefer the finished look of hand stitching.

The zip went in like a dream although I could not bring myself to cut the zip as per the instructions! However, cutting it once it was sewn in place worked well and I left the end stop in place too as it is covered by the fabric tab. Again, adding the binding over the zip took patience and there was a little reverse stitching here but I got there in the end.

And so here is my lovely new bag.

I am very pleased with the finished bag - the Soft and Stable works really well and is very light although I think for the small version I will use something a little less bulky.

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for Bag It 2017