What Do You Do With a Finish You Don’t “Love”?

Did you see the “Pick-a-Pocket Purse” pattern on allpeoplequilt.com? You do know that contrary to the name it isn’t all just about quilting, right? You should check it out sometime.

Anyhow, I saw the pattern and I liked it so I downloaded it (free!). Then Lynn from Alamosa Quilter made it and I remembered it and decided I should try it, too with my new dog fabric! Now Lynn said right in her post that she made another bag with longer handles and added pockets, but I decided to just go with the pattern as I made it while watching TV and didn’t really want to think that much. It only took an hour. When it was done it was immediately apparent to me that not only were the handles too short for my taste, but the bag itself was too small.

Now what? What do you do when you’ve made something that you like but that you know you won’t use? Giving it away as a gift is always good, but after staring at this little bag for a while I suddenly had a thought. It really is a great lunch bag size. But I would hate to have it all gunked up all the time. Then I remembered this…

I got this a while back after winning a gift certificate in one of the FabShop Hops. It took some rangling to get it inside the already made bag and it would have been much easier to apply it the fabric before sewing up the bag, but I didn’t have the thought then. It’s great stuff, light and flexible. The bag looks the same on the outside..

But on the inside it is all lined and will be easy to wipe out. See how the vinyl shines?

  And the really cool part is that I have enough fabric left over to make a purse to match. But I am going to take Lynn’s advise and make longer handles and add pockets. She already has. Check out her’s here and here. I obviously carry more junk than Lynn does though, so I am going to make my purse a little bigger, too.