The Bag Retreat

Not last weekend, but the weekend before, was the bag retreat with the inimitable Mrs H, bag designer extraordinaire.  I drove down to South Wales on the Friday morning, arriving just after lunch at the lovely hotel.  Bag making was already in full swing in the bag-making room!  I have absolutely no photos at all of the retreat I'm afraid, I was far too busy sewing, chatting, eating and nursing my hamster bites.  I was bitten by my goddaughter's hamster whilst dropping off Colin for them to babysit.  She got me in 3 places, on 2 fingers and I was still dripping with blood the next day!

This is the Double Flip bag, pattern by Emmaline Bags.  The lovely Janelle was at the retreat, sitting at my table.  I met her at the retreat last year and it was fab to see her again.  Not only is she a top notch bag designer and supplier of the best hardware, she's a fab person too and I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with her.  She supplied one of our free retreat patterns and that's what I chose to make.

The hardware on this bag, including this "handmade" label, is all from Sew Hot who had a pop-up shop at the retreat.  I also bought the faux leather used for the base and handle, and the rest of the bag fabrics from Sew Hot.  The outer is an Ombre Metallic Dot.  No idea who designed it or manufactured it... sorry, I'm rubbish at knowing about my fabric!

Due to the hamster bite, I hadn't been able to cut my fabric and fuse my interfacing prior to the retreat, as had been my plan.  This meant that the entire Friday was spent cutting out and interfacing.  Oh, and eating.  The food was amazing, and very plentiful!

I usually add extra inner pockets to bags, but I didn't need to.  Me and Janelle are on the same page about pockets and it has an inner zip pocket, and 2 slip pockets (to which I added a couple of lines of stitching to also create a pen holder).  There are also the two big pockets that form the double flip, and a secret slip pocket at the front.

I used that gorgeous teal fabric for all the lining, except the zip pocket, for which I used a scrap of red fabric with white dots.  I used metal zips for the first time.  It came on a continuous roll with several of the zip pulls included.  It was nowhere near as scary as I'd thought!

It hangs really nicely when carried.  The main inner is between the two pocket flaps.

Below you can see the secret pocket at the front.  It has a rivet either side of the opening to reinforce the stitching.  I didn't use rivets though as I've had no success at home with them so haven't bought a rivet press.  Instead I used Chicago Screws which were a revelation for me!  I LOVE them and will be investing in different sizes and colours to use on all my bags.  There are screws on the handle too.  This particular hardware is all gunmetal, which, along with nickel, is my favourite.

I finished the bag on Saturday night and spent Sunday cutting out and starting to sew a messenger bag for Z's birthday which is coming up in June.  I got pretty far with it, but haven't finished it since I got home as I'm still decorating and rearranging and decluttering and sorting out my house!  News of that coming to a blog post near you soon....

Yes, it was a lovely sunny day for photos!

Bag Camp part 1

The lovely Samantha runs an annual Bag Retreat (she's doing 2 a year now!) at a beautiful hotel in South Wales.  The retreat ran from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and was well worth the money.  We got 3 patterns as part of the package, all meals were included (and they were huge!) plus cake of course and coffee on tap, and a series of mini workshops talking about specific areas of bag-making.  If you are in the UK and like making bags, I'd definitely recommend it.  I've already booked for next April's retreat!

Please excuse the blurry photos.  Mr CA got the camera in the break up (it was his!) and my phone pictures come out really blurry.  They look great on my phone so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.  

I was a bit lax on the old preparation front, but I prepared 2 of the bag retreat patterns.  The bag you are seeing here is the Fiesta Tote.  It's an easy sew, but it took me most of the weekend.  NOTHING to do with me drinking too much vodka, eating too much cake and gossiping at all.  Nor anything to do with the trip to Pendryn Distillery I took on the Sunday with a lady called Tricia and Janelle from Emmaline Bags.  No, of course I didn't come back tipsy!

I bought the bag bling (the Handmade plaque) at the pop-up shop run by Sew Hot who, very dangerously, let us all run up a tab all weekend and settle up on the last day!  Very tempting...

I absolutely love how this bag came out.  I bought the outer fabric and the lining at the Hobbycrafts show in February at the NEC with this bag in mind, but I have no idea what either of them are, sorry!  It's been my main bag since I made it and it's holding up really well.  I even closed the turning gap!!

I think my one criticism would be that I needed one more zip pocket inside, but then I could have added one, I know how to do it!

I had also prepared the Toiletry Tote, another bag retreat pattern, and I took along the materials for the Starlet Clutch from the Bag of the Month club, but I hadn't had time to prepare it and I didn't get to it at all.

I did start the toiletry tote, but didn't finish it and ran into a few snags (see above re: vodka) so I still have to finish it off.  And I will!

I stayed over at the hotel on the Sunday night, then travelled down to Devon the following day with my family to scatter the rest of mum's ashes.  We had a lovely time but it was tinged with sadness of course.  In all I was away for over a week, then there was a bank holiday weekend which goes to explain why I a) haven't been visiting your blogs b) haven't been responding to emails c) haven't been posting and d) haven't made anything to post about!

I'll come back with a post about the toiletry tote when I finally dig it out and maybe even finish it!