Admittedly I’ve been on a bit of a bag kick recently. It didn’t help that I signed up for the Bag of the Month Club 🙂 But this one isn’t from that club — although coincidentally the bag for May is also from Swoon Patterns.
This is the Swoon Bonnie Bucket Bag. I really liked the shape of it because I figured it could hold a lot.
Per usual, I added some details that made it my own — a place to hold pens, IDs and others and key fob. I’ve loved having a key fob in my Backgammon bag so I had to put one here, too.
Here are some views of the lining before I inserted it. As you can see this bag has a lot of structure — even without the outside. For the lining, I used some metallic Michael Miller dots fabric that I had. I’ve had it a while and it was good to finally find a use for it!
The bag picture shows it in a combination of quilting weight fabrics and leather/faux leather. But I love my totally worn out silver leather bag so I wanted an all silver one. It did make for some really thick seams as you can see above where I put the extra bottom panel on. In the future, I would only make that part one layer instead of two, but it sure is sturdy!
I’m really proud of how my top stitching turned out. This was really only the second leather thing I made after the Polaris bag last month, but that’s exactly why I like the bag of the month club — it has forced me to try new materials and techniques!
I used some existing hardware that was a bit wider than the pattern called for so my handles and tabs are a bit wider to compensate. I think the wider straps complement the all silveriness of it though.
The inside zipper pocket was by the pattern.
For the top zipper, I actually used a separating zipper that I closed up. I like the way the plastic zippers handle better. It’s smoother than most of the zippers I can find in the store. If I were to make this bag again though, I would put tabs on the end of the zipper so it’s not sticking in the corners. I don’t think it looks bad, but sometimes it’s hard to pull the zipper out.
And the bottom. See what a nice round shape it has?
Another shot of the inside. Overall I’m really happy with this bag. I may switch over to it, but I’m really loving my backgammon bag at the moment so it might be a little bit. Maybe when the right occasion forces me to.
And one more shot showing how bucket-y it really is:
