"Hot Hues" Convertible Crossbody Fooler Bag [Pt 2]

Are you mesmerized by my Hot Hues Convertible Crossbody Fooler Bag??

So here it is — Mom's stylish new "going out for a walk when I don't have pockets" bag with the flap attached like I promised! (And by the way, she loved her Mother's Day present... went shopping with it that day and said that it holds everything she needs perfectly.)

I went with a basic black flap because she wouldn't want anything flashy. Truth be told, I only have some orange fabric that would have contrasted well with this and I was pretty sure she wasn't interested in a Halloween themed bag! Which I am happy to mock up for you below. :-D

A Halloween take on it...

In other news, it was really an adventure to break out the buttonholer thingamajig for my ancient Kenmore sewing machine.

I managed to remember that the feed dogs had to be down to use it, but it took several experiments with the stitch length and width settings before I got a nice looking button hole. (It costs very little to make practice runs on scrap fabric, so of course — whatever buttonholer you have — test it out first!) When it comes to this particular sewing machine accessory (or automatic feature), there are so many different types that it's virtually impossible to talk about how to use one in any generic way. Hopefully, you still have your manuals!

Back view of my Hot Hues Convertible Crossbody Fooler Bag!

I changed the look of the flap from the one that was mocked up a few weeks ago in my first post about this design. The front is still an asymmetrical triangle, but the back is no longer a rectangular piece over three buttons. Why? Two reasons: 1) why bother trying to align and put in three button holes when you really don't need to, and 2) I sewed the two outer buttons too far out to make my original plan feasible. (Ha ha on me...)

Had to change up the back flap...

The most rewarding part of the design process — that I'm finding out bit by bit — is the constant learning all the way through. In this case, I thought it was all figured out but by happy accident, a forced change to fix something churns out a better result than the planned original! (And it adheres to my basic principal that I wrote about in my basting post a couple of weeks ago; this new way is much more efficient.)

In the interests of keeping things simple, there isn't a button in the front to secure the flap (although it's definitely still an option). After it was ironed, it held its crease pretty well and — because it's jammed between the two straps — it lies flat, even when there is stuff inside the bag.

Well, the fate of the Hot Hues Convertible Crossbody Fooler Bag is a done deal; the PDF pattern/tutorial is almost complete. It will take a wee bit longer to polish up than my Crafty Cosmetics Caddy pattern, so I can't provide a release date yet.