
(I've just realized it is April Fool's Day, so I guess I'm supposed to do something jokey. Let's pretend I did some elaborate ruse and move on.)
My sweet and beautiful niece Chelsea, who also towers over me, has just turned eighteen. Eighteen! I ask you. I felt it was Momentous and needed marking with some handmade something. So I made her a messenger bag with a bird on it. Wow that blue is like a turquoise supernova on the photo. It
is bright, but doesn't hurt the eyes like the photos.


I've tried before in vain to find a link to the free
messenger bag pattern I used, modified a bit of course. It is no longer available, but it is fairly simple. Just a bunch of rectangles really. Might do a write-up of my own version for a future tutorial.
The body and strap of the bag is more dark denim I had leftover from
these. I came up with the flap design on my own, used midweight cottons I had in my stash, and just three pieces for the basic shape. Stabilized with some fusible interfacing. Then some machine applique for the branch, bird and leaves. Man, I dig applique! I've missed it. Heat n bond, how I love thee.

In my opinion, the more pockets a bag has, the better, so I added a pocket on the back of the bag and also two pockets on the inside.
Now I have the itch to make one for myself, and my sister (no. 2 of four) requested one for her birthday in July. Also I have another niece, Jamie, who recently turned eighteen (and who is also lovely and towers over me, what is the DEAL?). I'll have fun thinking of some other simple applique design for those.