The essentials shoulder bag....

I've been wanting a little bag to hold the essentials when ducking out or going to a concert....you know keys, purse, glasses, phone, tissues and stuff. It was only one of those 'wanty' kind of desires so I wasn't deliberately looking for one but then it occurred to me that I could make one.

I grabbed a metal jeans zip from Spotlight, the size of the zip and my wallet determining the size of bag. Then set about setting more of my triangle binding off-cuts into 2.5" linen squares. As I was using scraps of linen I only made as many 1/2 square triangles as the squares I could cut which was 36. This gave me 18 blocks per side and I added a another linen strip to the bottom to make it a little deeper. I ended up with roughly two 9" squares. Then vertically straight line quilted each piece, set in the zip, made the bag using this method (but without the tabs) and set in two little fabric loops with D-rings to take the hardware.

The hardware clasps are from Bunnings which are quite study and also available in brass to match the teeth of the zip and the D-rings. I made the strap in a similar way to how I make lanyards, joining 2.5" wide scraps, folding in towards each other and top stitching.

The lining is about the last piece I have of some fox fabric I purchased last year from Spotlight.

Of course as soon as I shared the results someone asked for one too....perhaps I should learn to make two of everything!