Minerva Blogger Network Project - Stripy Bag

For my July Minerva Blogger Network project I decided to make something other than an item of clothing. Much as I love making clothes, I was desperately in need of a(nother) project bag for my ever expanding collection of unfinished knitting projects!
I spent quite a long time on Pinterest looking at bag patterns, and finally decided to go with this reversible box tote, which is a free download from Very Shannon.

It's even pictured with knitting in it, so I knew it was the one!
For my fabric I picked some blue and white mini striped denim for the outside, and some blue, pink and lilac flag print cotton poplin for inside. I had one metre of each of these fabrics, together with 1 metre of medium weight interfacing.
Here's what I did with it.

As you can see, I didn't add the pocket - I was going to put one inside, but I forgot! - and my bag isn't reversible. What I did add was a free motion embroidered and appliqued picture to one side.

 I've been doing free motion embroidery for a couple of years and love it. I used scraps of fabric I already had in my stash, but Minerva have a great selection of fat quarters if you wanted to pick up a few to give this a go yourself. I have a tutorial here on my blog giving you the basics of the process if its something you've never tried before. Be warned though, it's pretty addictive!
If you don't fancy the free motion embroidery but want to embellish your bag somehow, how about trying some of these padded felt motifs? These birds are very sweet.

The fabrics included in the kit give you more than enough to make 2 or 3 bags, so you've got plenty to experiment with! I did use almost all the interfacing on this one, so you might need to pick up more of that if you want to make several bags.