October Day Pack Bag OMG Finished

This month we shared our October OMG on Patty’s Elm Street Quilts website during her linkup party.  The project is also a squirrel – it was NOT on the radar and yet I needed to make it. Barbara supplied me with the link to her free tutorial at Moda Bake Shop. I used it for the dimensions, supplies, and yardage.  Barbara is famous (in my eyes) at MBS as this is her second tutorial I have referred to.  The first was her Snowballs Chance pattern which was chosen in the second quilt-along that we hosted!  Here’s our tale of the bicycle-themed day pack.

October OMG Day Pack Project

Several friends made several different kinds of bags, and while I admired them, they didn’t strike a chord.  That is until Kathleen made a dinosaur-inspired version of a child’s day pack (that I’ll have to make for Dominic one day) at the end of September.  During the middle of the night, the squirrel chattered in my ear that this would be a perfect gift for my boss.

Day pack supplies acquired right away!

My boss, Catherine, is a bicycling enthusiast.  Recently, she has been biking between buildings/schools to enjoy the nice weather.  One of these day packs would come in very handy for her, I think.  Supplies were acquired so that I truly could drop everything and make it!  Parachute cording for sturdiness and grommets so the cord doesn’t tear the fabric.  A pocket or two will be added to the lining to tuck a phone into, and possibly another one for an access badge.

Day Pack Ease

Vicki told me I could get this bag done in one evening, and she would probably be correct if I knew what I was doing.  Barbara also said this is a 30 minutes project!  Woot woot!  I need a nice, simple, mindless project right now.  Mindless does not mean leave your mind in the other room though, does it?!  Sue, my favorite sewing partner in the whole world, found the bicycle fabric for me!  Yippee skippy.  I set about cutting the fabric last Monday morning.  It was a nice sunny day . . .

All ready to cut both layers at once!

I kept repeating to myself, 16″ x 20″ until I dropped the 20″ and cut 16 careful inches.  Except that is the width, not the length.  Fortunately, I had only cut ONE layer instead of the two layers at once.  Oh, no!  Not only is this not a good start but it turns out it was only the beginning.  I should have walked away, but how would it be finished by Friday if I did?  I quickly turned on my sewing machine, sewed a nice straight seam and pressed it open.  Who will ever notice that seam?

Day Pack Special Touches

Special touches were in order for this day pack.  If you can buy one for only a dollar, you cannot buy one like this one for that price!  Pockets were fussy cut and carefully ironed, tucking the raw edges underneath.

I creased the lining and pocket fabric to determine the center of each piece and then pinned it across the top.  Two pockets were added – one for an iPhone and the other for a lanyard.  Five inches down from the top raw-edge seemed like a good amount and it turned out to be a perfect measurement.

Isn’t that lining fabric just fabulous, as well?  The fabric used is called, “Enjoy the Ride” by Jennifer Brinley for Studio Fabrics.  We found it in a quilt shop in the Madison, Wisconsin area.

Day Pack Finish

Hinted above but not mentioned are the other trials I had.  During the middle of the night, I thought I would try a ‘shortcut’ in stitching the lining to the bag.  No photos were taken of this frustrating nightmare of a bad idea, but let’s just say that Barbara’s instructions are clearcut.  Especially if you follow them.  This pretty day bag took me about five hours to make, which would have been reduced by at least four hours had I just admitted my defeat right away.  Next time, I’ll just rip out and follow the instructions should there BE a next time.

Sue knew I was having a fit about my own stupidity so she willingly posed for two photos.  She even had her favorite purple top on that went well with the bag.

You can’t even see the oops seam!

Day Pack Goodies Inside

I have always heard that it is back luck to give someone an empty wallet – you have to put a penny inside.  With inflation that amount is probably $10 by now.  Anyhow, I decided that some Cadbury candy bars were in order.  Three different candy varieties were chosen mostly because I wasn’t sure which was her favorite.  Amazingly, they were NOT consumed prior to the gift-giving!  I ‘wrapped’ two of the bars with a picture of a phone and a lanyard just to give the impression of how to use the pockets.  The photos were sized to match the candy bars and printed on plain paper.  You can easily see that the phone will slightly peek out of the pretty orange bicycle pocket.

Day Pack OMG & Squirrel

We will share the day pack/backpack completion on Patty’s Elm Street Quilts website when she opens the link.  The finish easily met the deadline of the 18th for gifting.  We will also share this as a squirrel project on Sandra’s mmm Quilts on the last Saturday of the month, and at Quilting Gail’s TGIFF linky party on Friday.  I don’t have a picture of Catherine with the day pack, but she did love it.  ~smile~

Our other Linky Parties can be found by clicking the link above or along the sidebar on our website for more quilting fun – check out what our friends are up to.  Like/follow us on our Facebook page and you can share your photos of what you’re working on.  We would love to see them!

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