Bird trail messenger bag

Apparently, the process of childbirth is so painful it leads many women to say 'never again' and yet, a year or two down the line they are pregnant with their next child. Well, you may be wondering why I'm talking about childbirth?!! Well, we've just made this bag and it was so painful....we declared 'never again'! How it's turned out half decent we don't know. 

Essentially, you make a bag made out of the outer fabric and a bag out of the lining fabric. Then slot one inside the other, stitch around the edges and then turn the right way and top stitch - job done! Sounds simple.....if only! The major problems are, firstly, lack of experience, then rounded corners, then seam allowance accuracy!

The gusset has to be attached to both the front and back pieces. So in total, we had to sew four curves for the outer bag and four for the inner. I think I'd lost the plot at about....let me see....curve number one! The two pieces were pinned together really well but it was like handling an unruly porcupine with attitude! I must've stabbed myself a zillion times with the pins and was trying my best not to bleed onto the cream materials. Easing the curves together was difficult but even more difficult was trying to stick to a 1cm seam allowance. And there in lies the problem when you try and put one bag inside the other. If you're slightly out a few millimetres here and there, these add up and mean that the two don't fit. When you try to sew them together, the seams don't want to match and you end up with a little pucker here and there. At one point we were so bamboozled and after much scratching of heads, we decided the only medicine was a strong cafetiere coffee and chocolate!

And just in case you're wondering....here's the inside with it's very own matching pocket!