3.24 Pain - Sewing this Bag

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the twenty-fourth day of each month is "Pain."
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This weekend was my last quiet weekend at home for a while and I spent most of it working on this beauty.  Don't be jealous, my friends, it can be yours for the price of fabric, thread, a zipper, and the better part of eleven hours of your life. Oh, wait, it can probably be done in an hour or two if you know what the hell you're doing.

It turns out that while I make a good show of looking like I know what I'm doing (see below where I pressed my fabric every single time the pattern told me to, even though I think there was some over-pressing going on), I have no idea how to actually read a pattern, particularly Simplicity 9949 Bag A, and that means that there is constant seam ripping and occasional pissiness with myself for being incompetent. New goal: be kinder to myself when working on something new.

So, in general, learning a new skill is not painless. It involves much trial and error. At least I get something tangible out of it in the end!

Oh, it has a zipper, too. It's hard to see in the earlier picture, but you can see it from this angle. Yes, I do think I'm a bit of a badass for making this!  No, I don't think I should quit my day job and become a seamstress.

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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.