Over at PatternReview they have just held a 2 week contest challenge to make a handbag between 1 and 15 August.

Now when I showed Mum my version of this bag, I had a request for a black and white one for Christmas, but seeing it is Mum’s birthday this month the opportunity to make her bag earlier was perfect timing.

Thankfully I had been on the lookout for black and white fabric ever since Mum had said she would like this bag and had purchased 2 fat quarters at the Craft and Quilt Fair at Darling Harbour in June.  I already had the Ghee’s Tubular Frame from a joint order that I placed with Maria.

My main challenge was then to source some black fabric for the contrast for the bag and then remembered I had some black denim left over from the jeans I made.

This bag uses Matilda’s Own Bag Batting which makes the bag quite stable by itself, however one of the requirements of the competition was that interfacing had to be used.

So I fused interfacing to the Sun Silky that I wanted to use for the lining to make it more durable,

As you can see I don’t like a dark interior in bags, you just can’t find anything.

This bag pattern goes together really well and surprisingly quickly.

I did use a Jeans 110 needle for all the denim sewing and it all went very smoothly as when you sew on the tubes for the frame you are sewing through some very thick layers.

This is the finished bag,

The zippered pocket with my label on it,

and for the other pocket I divided this for Mum’s phone and a space for her to carry a  pen.

The bag was wrapped and posted to Mum last Wednesday and I was very surprised when I got a phone call on Thursday night from a very excited Mum to say that my parcel had arrived and she was absolutely thrilled with her bag.

I have entered this bag in the PatternReview challenge and my review is here for those interested.