Just wanted to show you Frida in her new dress – I think she’s beautiful, but I may be biased…

The sun showed itself yesterday! Following days and days of nothing but greyness, it was quite amazing to see the long shadows that were cast on the snow. I was driving in the car with Frida, and she complained about getting the sun in her eyes. Complained! Of course, I had to tell her to get her priorities straight – not sure she knew what I meant, though.

I made her this dress a few days ago, and I love it – it looks even cuter on her. I’m sorry to say it’s made from Onion 20022 again, but seriously this pattern has been worth every øre (penny or dime would sound better, but it just wouldn’t be true) I paid for it. Check out everything I made from the pattern right here. This dress is made from Hilco velvet (love, love, love it) from Malika & Rosa and cotton from Joel Dewberry found at Fabric.com.

Now, it’s Friday night, and I’m looking forward to the weekend. Let’s do a quick wrap-up.

Mads will be home in an hour or two after a few days of work in Stokesley, UK. Remember the photo of Ronja in the Lucia parade? Well, it just won a global Christmas season photo contest in my company, and an iPod Touch will be arriving in the mail soon. Nice. Also I have realized that there are job opportunities out there, and some of them seem not so far off – so now I just need to find the right one, and get it! It’ll be a nice weekend!

OK, so let’s start with the good stuff. The bag is big with a nice rounded shape, it has three pockets on the inside, and it hangs nicely on your shoulder. Before I started it, I checked the internet for good advice and I found a few helpful resources.

This photo tutorial over at Indie House was great for just looking through the project before starting my own.

From this post over at Pink Chalk Studio, I was inspired to add magnetic snap closure to the bag – and her post is very insightful, so definitely also worth a read before starting.

Also – I’m useless at handsewing, and I had no idea how to slipstitch, so this post on Taffy Talk came in really handy – and that elephant is too cute! The lining in my bag is closed beautifully because of it.

Now, while I’m really happy with the bag in terms of shape, size, the way it came together, etc. – I’m equally unhappy with my choice of fabric. I don’t know what happened – I knew it already while I was putting it together.

I love both prints that are on the exterior of the bag, but they just don’t go together. I had my mind set on something more simple to go with the white linen, but I didn’t have exactly the right thing in my stash, so I think I just became impatient and ended up using the best alternative – or it seemed so at the time. I realized too late that it wasn’t right, and now after I spent two evenings making it, I’m going to learn to love it – hopefully. The band and handle-fabric is Joel Dewberry as well as the fabric for the interior – and they’re both so beautiful. The white printed main fabric is a rather stiff linen, which seems to be nice and durable, but doesn’t provide much drape – especially not after being interfaced. I think next time I make this bag, I will probably go for something heavier, yet soft.

So I basically followed the instructions step-by-step, and they are well written and easy to understand. This bag is praised everywhere as being a great beginner’s project, and uhm… I agree, provided that you’re not an impatient person. Make sure you have everything on the materials list when you want to start the project, I was thrown off a bit by how much fabric and interfacing I actually needed. Also interfacing 14 pieces of fabric takes a while in cutting and ironing. After I had everything ready, I didn’t really encounter any problems. Remember, that if you want to add magnetic closure, you should do so before joining the exterior and the interior – that’ll make it easier. The pattern includes a glossary to explain sewing terms, which is a wonderful thing if you’re not too familiar with the techniques.

This is what my bag looks like – I just might make it again sooner or later in order to get it right.