Oversized Fashionista Bag

So, before I talk about my oversized fashionista bag, what I consider to be my greatest bag triumph yet, I’m going to complain for a second. I tried to take three days off work this week, but only managed to get two. And that’s after working a shit-ton of extra hours to make up the time. I hate to complain about the job that keeps me in the amount of fabric to which I have become accustomed, but I’m going to anyway. 😉

On the bright side, it’s an absolutely gorgeous day here in Erie, PA. The weather is completely perfect and I’m sitting on my little side porch while I type this. It seemed like a good day to finally write about my favorite bag. The bag is from the book The Bag Making Bible by Lisa Lam, that I bought a couple of years ago while the kid was taking the PSSA exams. The book and bag are fantastic. I’m a self-taught sewist, so I love any new tricks or hacks I can find to make things easier. This book is full of them.

The oversized fashionista bag is one that I made to take me through the winter. I loved it so much though, that I carried all the way to summer. As a matter of fact, I’m getting ready to make one in a white canvas for summer. I picked up a yard of outdoor canvas out of the red tag pile Joann Fabrics last weekend.

My winter version of the oversized fashionista bag was made from a silver croc-style faux leather that I got from Fabric.com. It’s beautiful. I lined it with a silky teal that really popped against the sparkly silver.

The basic bag pattern didn’t call for any interior or exterior pockets, but there was plenty of room to add them…hence the word oversized. I added two pockets to the interior, one zippered and the other with an elastic top. Every gal needs a zipper pocket on the interior of their bag to hide those things they don’t want anyone to see when they drop their bag in public and everything spills out. This may or may not have happened to me on multiple occasions. I’ll admit nothing. The second interior pocket is that all-important cell phone pocket. I like the elastic at the top so it holds it snug.

On the outside, I added another zipper pocket. I don’t know about you, but I hate digging through my bag to find my keys when I’m trying to maneuver my over-packed cart out of the grocery store. By having that extra pocket out the outside, I can easily grab them while I’m walking toward the car. For both the interior and exterior zipper pockets, I used the tips in the book to put the zipper in perfectly. On the outside, I also get a really cute peek of the blue interior fabric.

The pattern called for two straps, but I decided to just go with one. It was also my first time using eyelets in the faux leather. That was tricky, but it turned out really great. I interfaced all the lining fabric for strength and also used Soft and Stable to give my bag body. All of the layers had me longing for an industrial machine. I ended up using both my Viking and my old Kenmore that belonged to my Great Grandmother. That Kenmore would have worked perfectly if I had a walking foot for it. I also used a magnetic snap as opposed to the closure that was in the book. That was only because that’s what I had on hand and was too lazy to hop in the car and head to the store.

Without a doubt, the oversized fashionista bag is my favorite bag so far. Making it from the faux leather was a little adventurous for a first try, but you can always count on my to do the crazy thing. 🙂 I look forward to seeing the differences when I try it in canvas.