A Boy's scripture bag

As you know I've made a few scripture bags for girls. Or maybe you don't since my blogging has been so sporadic this year. In any case, I have. I was looking forward to working with a different pattern in anticipation for Beckham's big day. As it turns out our cousin is an amazing seamstress and had a pattern that was perfect for Beckham's request for his bag. She sent the pattern right over.

The cool thing is she trusted me with half of a pattern. It wasn't quite finished, but she felt I just might have the skills to do it anyway. I would say that was mostly true. Except for the part where I misread a whole step and didn't add the lining at the top *blush* Oh well. As I told Skye, the white (that was supposed to also include the striped lining fabric as well) is a special one of a kind feature of Beckham's bag. An extra pop of color if you will.

Inside out view

Inside out view. There should be brown and blue striped fabric on top of the white duck cloth. It's cool. It's a new feature ;) The suit fabric is an inside pocket.

Right side out, looking in

The truth is, when it's right side out, no one even notices.

I constructed the bag from suiting material. It felt masculine and timeless to me. I wanted something that was cool now, but would still be fitting as he grew older.

I added the grommets because metal is the perfect accessory for anything you give a boy.

 It's akin to something sparkly for a girl.

I also added one additional pocket more than the pattern called for. The big front pocket the grommets are on. Beckham is a pocket kind of a boy :)

Here is the exterior pocket the pattern calls for

Karaia helped me choose the mustard yellow zipper and thread.

LOVE the zipper pull tabs!

 We really went back and forth between what color to chose. I'm glad she was there to help!

I am thrilled with how it turned out. Nice and sturdy, great lines to look at, fun features like the zipper tabs, and fun to sew. Good times.

Scripture tote

This was a bit of a scary challenge for me. I really wanted to design Karaia's scripture bag all on my own. But translating a pattern from your head onto paper and then to fabric was very intimidating for me. I didn't want to end up with something I or she would be embarrassed about.

First things first, a trip to the fabric store. Because she was turning 8 and because I had been trying to loosen my reigns a bit and let her make her own choices and, most importantly, because this was HER bag and I wanted her to love it I let her pick out a few fabric combinations completely on her own and then I helped guide her on a few others.

When we were done with this process we had about 5 different fabric combinations. I asked her to pick one from the five. As it turns out Karaia and I have very different taste preferences. What she picked was cute, it just wasn't what I would have chosen.:) But then she added one more fabric pattern, polka dots, and it brought it back into my world.

Now the hard part. Taking what I had drawn for a pattern and translating it to fabric.

Thankfully, I think it turned out pretty cute.

The sparkle was the perfect touch.

The ruching came to me in a dream. I wasn't sure if I could pull it off, but it may be my favorite part of the bag.

I even added a zipper pocket inside! I know. I'm shocked too. Finding out you can do more than you expected has to be the best feeling ever.

Two pockets on the side for pencils, a pocket in the front, and a zipper pocket in the back.

There is heavy, super stiff, interfacing on the sides. I wanted it to hold it's shape regardless of whether or not it was holding scriptures or not.

The best part? Karaia loves it. That's all I wanted it to achieve. Happy Birthday Karaia