Briony's bag

So this is actually the bag that started my passion for bagmaking, and was started waaaaaay before any of the others. I saw this fabric in my favourite local fabric shop and decided I wanted to make it into a Very Useful Bag. The basic dimensions and shape of the bag are the same as those of the Bag that Sparked the Blog, as Briony and I both felt that this particular kind of bag was missing from our lives. {Please excuse the blurryness of the above picture: it was taken late at night after a thrilling night spent at a Cluedo party. The bag wanted to be photographed despite the late hour and many Mrs. Peacockjitos (a twist on mojito: classic mojito with blue ice cubes).}I found this hessian tape for the handles and put in an extra long zip. This wasn't so much a conscious choice, as it was another example of my impatience: the bag had been waiting to be finished for at least a year (my old sewing machine gave up on it) and I couldn't wait another few weeks to get a zip that fit perfectly AND was this exact colour. So I sewed an oilcloth tab on the end of it, which has the accidental bonus of enabling one to open the bag up completely, making it easier to fit those pesky files in. And OF COURSE there is an internal zipper pocket. Briony was very specific about the size of this pocket, as she's found sometimes internal zip pockets are too small for her wallet.

I'm very pleased to be able to report that Briony uses the bag a lot, and that it seems to do what she wanted it to do!