In Every Job That Must Be Done There Is An Element of Fun

Check out my Poppins-esque "carpet" bag:



I have to put "carpet" in quotation marks here as it just feels wrong to call it a "carpet" bag when it's made from quilting cotton. Although it doesn't hold quite as much as Ms. Poppins' carpet bag (hers was made of carpet, so it doesn't need the quotes, see), it's plenty roomy enough to hold my umbrella, purse, phone, knitting bag, scarf, keys and still have room for a bit more. In the pictures here the bag is empty, so it looks a little flat, but once packed with all my gubbins it looks good and plump.



The pattern is this one sold at U-Handbag, with the tubular frame (awesome invention, btw) and interfacing and what-nots all from there, too. When I ordered the pattern and all the interfacing etc, I only went and forgot to order the frame, didn't I, so had to go back and try again when my order arrived sans the most important element. Honestly.

The fantastically 50s pink and grey dog fabric is from Michael Miller, a reproduction of a classic 1950s handkerchief design by Tammis Keefe; the spotted lining fabric I'm not sure. This is why I should keep my selvedges. The colours do look a little yellow here in these photos; the pink is very vibrant and the grey nice and charcoaly in real life. I think the light was fading fast as I took these photos, or maybe it's my ancient camera which will need replacing one of these days. This, I think, is a better representation of the true colour.



It was quite easy to sew it all together, once I'd figured out which was the top and which was the bottom of the pattern! The lining shows on the outside as you turn it over to make the casing for the frame, but there's no reason why you couldn't turn it to the inside instead. The pattern called for fabric handles, but I went for these retro-tastic bamboo handles instead, just making little loops to hold them on which I just placed under the casing and sewed down in one go.

Now I've got the hang of it, I think I'll be making plenty of these for pressies, maybe even in carpet.