Finished Object! Mommy Poppins Bag

One project done on the new-to-me Singer Featherweight, and I'm already thinking of all the garments I could attempt now that I would never have been able to do on my anemic contemporary Singer. Jeans? A leather jacket? 

I digress. The new machine, on loan from the Peter Lappin Singer Sewing Machine Museum, Chelsea Annex, came just in time; I don't think the Mommy Poppins Bag I made this weekend would have turned out half as great without it: 

I was so thrilled to test out Jodi Bonjour's newest bag pattern. It's actually a diaper bag, but I think it does just fine as an NYC-sized handbag.



Just look how stiff those straps are (my old machine would never have managed feeding that thickness over its feeble dogs):

The daunting thing about sewing a handbag was all the fabric, notions and hardware required. But it's details like these that make a handbag look professionally done:

I even installed a magnetic snap! (Which was not at all hard-to-do. Still, it was new to me):

I used a strip of suede as an accent along one of the outer pockets. It matches the branches in the print perfectly, and is my favorite detail:

Speaking of the print, do any of you remember this Marimekko fabric? It used to hang above my bed:

Monkey, jumping on the bed

I'm so happy it found new life in this bag, which I will be using often this summer in NYC: 

I know what you're thinking: But can it hold a houseplant and floor lamp?

The always inspiring Mary Poppins

While the vertical height may not fit an entire houseplant or a floor lamp (a cactus and a nightlight, maybe), it has a lot of real estate. The Mommy Poppins bag can carry all my essentials, plus snacks and water for kid, extra hats, a book, and even my DSLR camera — all important items to carry along on daytrips this summer with my daughter.

And if you actually use this bag as a diaper bag, the carpet-bag-style opening is a super handy feature; snap it open and it stays like that, which means you'll have an easy time reaching over with one hand to grab the wipes while you keep your kid from rolling off the change table with the other hand. And all those interior pockets let you keep things separate so they're easy to find:

This pattern is still in the testing phase, so I don't want to say too much about it other than that I had no problems. The only place I slipped up was in matching up the corner and side patches, but it was clearly my own failure to be accurate in folding and pressing over seam allowances. By the time I realized this, I weighed it out and decided it didn't bother me enough to unpick seven seams. (Have I mentioned how much I hate unpicking?). See my error:

Meh. I can live with that.

This bag actually has me kind of excited for summer, which I had been dreading due to the extreme heat and the lack of subsidized childcare. I can carry plenty of cold drinks and sunscreen (and probably even a beach towel) in my Mommy Poppins bag.

Jodi just had another baby this week, so I'm guessing the official launch of this new pattern may be on hold while she recovers and bonds with the wee one. When she does launch and the Mommy Poppins Bag pattern is available to buy, I'll post a link to it for anyone who's interested. What fabrics would you use?