Project Pinterest: Fabric Lunch Bag

I've actually made a few things from Pinterest lately, but unfortunately they've ended up scarfed down in a fit of dessert eating frenzy before I could get a good picture. For the record, you should definitely try the Confetti Cake Batter Cookies and the Oreo White Chocolate Pudding Cookies :)

Several months ago I pinned this:

Click to see the original pin

The site that this pin came from is a wonderful sewing blog called Bee in My Bonnet. It has lots of great pictures, ideas, tutorials and fantastic sewing patterns--check it out! The tutorial I used for the lunch bag was found on another fabulous sewing blog called Pink Penguin. Click here to go straight to her step-by-step tutorial!

I started with some fabric that may look familiar:

I can't believe I still have scraps of this fabric left--it's been used on Charlotte's bedroom decor, a pillowcase dress I made her last summer, her rocking chair cover, a sewing machine cover, and now this. And I still have enough scraps left over to make one more pillowcase dress and something else small...maybe doll clothes?

Anyhow, I cut all of my pieces according to the measurements given in the tutorial. The only thing I did differently here was to make each piece of the lining, cover, and outer bag different fabrics so that there's a different color/pattern from every viewpoint.

Here are a few pictures of how it looked as it was coming together:

Here's where I altered my bag a bit...though it wasn't my intention to do so. According to the original pattern, the finished bag has a smaller bag within it with a drawstring. This bag is connected to the bottom of the outer bag so the whole thing is still one unit. I messed mine up at some point and made it impossible to attach the smaller drawstring bag to the outer cover, so I ended up just keeping them separate to avoid having to rip everything out and basically start all over again. No big deal, and I kind of prefer it that way after all since the drawstring bag is quite a bit smaller. Happy accident.

The finished outer bag measures about 10" wide, 7" tall and 4.5" deep. It's a cute size and perfect for storing small toy pieces (which is my plan for it, even though its original intention was a lunch bag). I have it on good authority that Charlotte might be getting a Little People Zoo for Christmas. Now she'll have a place to keep all the animals and zookeepers when not in use, which will keep them from getting lost in her toy box, under the couch, in Howard's bed, etc.

~Stacy