Just a note if you use Bloglines. Bloglines hasn’t been correctly tracking updates to my blog or new posts. I have checked my blog feeds and they are working properly, as they are being correctly picked up by other Blog Feed Aggregators such as Google Reader and My Yahoo. I have contacted Bloglines and they are trying to resolve the problem.

So on with the rest of this post! One of my goals this year is to make (rather than buy) a Christmas gift for all the females in my immediate family (Mum, Mum-in-law, Sister-in-law), for my 2 girls, and for all my female god-children. For the males, I hope to buy something handmade and will hopefully take up the challenge of making them something next Christmas :-)

I’ve started on the list (and just in case my family or god-children do happen to come upon this blog, I won’t be saying who the following gifts are for). I’ve always wanted to try my hand at making the wonderful patchwork handbags from Machine Made Patchworks (Vol 1).

These bags have been floating around the craft blogs for a while now and you will see a great example of its versatility from Blair’s Wisecraft Etsy Shop. After my fairly successful first attempt at making a bag, I approached this patchwork bag pattern with some degree of confidence (although the pattern is all in Japanese!). And after a bit of umming and ahhing at some of the diagrams, here are 2 (out of 3) that I’ve managed to finish.

You may notice that the ones I’ve made are smaller than the original bags in the book - the original bag has 8 panels on each side, while mine has 6 panels and is shorter. My aim was to make a more ‘purse-sized’ bag - just big enough to hold the essentials and not too cumbersome to carry around. I used a variety of my favourite cotton prints that I used on both sides of the bag; just arranged differently for each side.

The top bag is lined with dark blue linen (handles are the same fabric), and the bottom bag is lined with chocolate wool flannel (handles same fabric also). You’ll also notice that the handles on one are longer than the other due to the different heights of the future recipients :-)

While I was working away on these bags, I did have another (more simple) bag pattern floating around in my head. So I quickly put one together - again, this one is made of dark blue linen, a cotton print and some girly lace trim.

So flat on the floor, it looked okay . . .

But not so good hanging on the wall (or on ones’ arm)!

I actually skipped the interfacing, which wasn’t a good idea. So I’m thinking I’ll undo a seam, turn it inside out, and try and sneak in some interfacing that way. I’ll let you know how it goes :-)

I’m just about to complete a Notebook-&-Pencil holder for one of my god-children and I hope to post up a tutorial on it later on in the week.