Velocity Girl Bag

At the beginning of this year, Sara from Sew Sweetness put a call out for pattern testers and I jumped at the chance! Along with garments, she also designs bags, which I have been wanting to try for a while. I was kinda bummed that with grad school and work, my schedule didn't allow me to test her first three patterns, but thankfully I had enough time to try out her latest pattern, the Velocity Girl bag. Can you believe that she has already released four patterns since the start of the year?!

This bag was so much fun to make, especially since I was able to use fabric from my stash! The exterior fabric is leftover from the dress that I made for our Black History Month luncheon last year at work. Who knows why I had two yards of the blue cotton that I used as a lining, but it worked out perfecly. I LOVE the African print so I'm glad that I'll be able to carry it around more often than I wear the dress (which I still declare a dud, but wore last week anyway).

Being the procrastinator that I am, I took until the last day that our comments were due to finish my bag. Of course I wasn't able to finish before the sun went down, so I was stuck taking photos indoors. Thankfully the lighting isn't too terrible thanks to our new recessed lighting!

The slim side pockets will be perfect for holding pens, which seem to always swim around in my purses. The exterior has three pockets and there are three more on the inside, as well as a zippered pocket.

I had so many sewing firsts with the purse! This was definitely the thickest project that I've sewn, due to the stabilizer between the layers. I love how nicely the purse stands up because of it (Sara uses By Annie's Soft and Stable). This is the first time I've ever really worked with hardware, such as the magnetic closure or the strap accessories. I was pleasantly surprised to see that inserting the zipper was essentially the same as inserting the zipper on the collar of the Minoru!

I'm so pleased with the end result that I keep staring at it like it's one of my first sewing projects. Check out Sara's pattern shop for this pattern and the others! I'm excited to see what she comes up with next!