The Tapestry Bag, Vogue 8406 OOP

Thanks  everyone for the comments on the Bumblebee ensemble. It was lots of fun.I will make a hair ornament too but will spare you that detail! Enough already!

Also, I did finish my April pants and I really like them. I finished them a day or so before the accident so they kind of got shuffled to the side. I do have a  knit for a coordinating top coming up so will save the pants reveal until the top can be worn with it. Now to get going on the May pants before May slips by!

I have been working on my Tapestry bag, Vogue 8406. There is lots I am liking about this pattern so far. It seems to be well drafted, not something I always see in bags. The pattern suggests a hair canvas interfacing. I chose to fuse a fleece first and then added the hair canvas. This was to mostly help control ravelling which tapestry is notorious for. For whatever reason the tapestry shrunk in the fusing process and I did prewash and dry the tapestry before cutting. So I cut and marked all the seams on the hair canvas so all would be accurate and used that to sew by.Here you can see the difference in the sizes. The hair canvas is accurate.

This bag has straps and for that I used a microfiber upholstery fabric. No special reason why other than the color  and texture worked better than anything else I could find. Past experience told me to use a microtex needle as this stuff can be miserable to stitch through.It was but I got through with this bag. 

The pattern requires that the edges of the straps be turned in and pressed 1/4 of an inch along the length. . For this I use a template, folding the fabric over the edge to the proper line and pressing.

Once the straps had the sides pressed in the end needed to be wrapped around the ring. This fabric leaves wicked pin holes so I used a hairclip to secure it as well as Wonder Tape to hold the edges down for topstitching.

One of the things I really really like about this pattern is the thought that went into the construction around the ends of the zippers. The bag has two zips that meet at center top. They go about 2/3rds of the way down each side of the bag. I think every pattern I have ever done with zippers has you insert them into an unsewn part of the seam. I always feel like I have to fudge the ends to make them look right. In this pattern you get an odd looking pattern piece, sort of a slight ellipse with a swallowtail at each end. This is then folded in half  and the swallowtail is reinforced with stitching. You then clip up into the "tail" as you can see above. That clip is where the gusset will be stitched in. So far it is looking like a really smooth transition. Hopefully the rest of the construction will finish smoothly. It should be done in a day or two....Bunny