Too late Summer Bag, Butterick 4409

All of my "units" are done. I have been trying to do a bit each day and hopefully this weekend will put it all together. I have made this bag before so I am not going to dwell on its construction too much here. The only difference between this one and the last one that blogged about here is the handle treatment. In the first bag I used the designated straps. In this bag I am going for the bamboo handles. I think this is the fourth time I have used Butterick 4409. Hopefully I will have the finished product on blog by Sunday night. This pattern is currently OOP, but still available from Butterick online.

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I have been smocking away on Carly's bishop and finally have hit my stride. It seems that with every smocking project I do an awful lot of ripping out in the first row or two and then it all settles down and I comfortably stitch to the finish. On this dress I must have ripped out the first row, black stitches, at least three times. Then I just gave up. To heck with it and went on to do the next colored rows and all fell in to place. When done all the rows I will go back and complete that first row. I think the black thread cursed me or something.

This dress is black and white and even with the soft design of the toile motifs it still has a graphic nature. Black and white will do that. To balance that out I decided to use 4 strands of thread for my smocking. 99% of the time one would use three. But once I experimented I found the heavier stitching worked better with my graphic print. This isn't a delicate heirloomy type dress but a heavier fabric, strong print, and casual plaid accents. So the four thread smocking it was!....Bunny