camwyn | I managed to break another double-point needle,

this time by not taking out a pin before stitching over it, so I had to back off from the sports bra I was working on (I was topstitching a seam allowance into place- I altered a pattern to have two colors rather than being one solid piece). I had the urge to sew yesterday, though, so I did these for my sister's kids because I'd been meaning to for quite some time.

A child-sized silver-grey bag shaped like the tail end of a shark, with a dorsal fin and blue lining.

A child-sized silver-grey bag shaped like the tail end of a shark, with a dorsal fin and blue lining.

A child-sized bag shaped like a mermaid's tail. The body is blue, green, and magenta scales, with a royal blue lining, and the tail fin is fuschia with shiny polka dots.

The pattern I started from, more or less, is at Singer's website. I took one look at the 'pattern' pieces and drew my own, cutting them a little larger, and then made an asymmetrical tail piece and an additional dorsal fin- because one of my sister's kids likes mermaids but the other likes sharks. Fabric for the mermaid bag is Joann's Multi Color Scales Keepsake Calico, fabric for the shark is Cloud9 Glimmer Solids in... I forget what, it's light grey/white with silver sparkly lurex, mermaid tail fabric is Special Occasion Fabrics Confetti Dot in fuchsia, liner fabric is Glitterbug Satin Fabric Solid Royal. The straps are 7/8 inch wide grosgrain ribbon. The tails, the fin, and the edges of each bag all use Stiff Stuff sew-in interfacing to hold their shape (the Singer pattern originally used pieces of metal measuring tape with the corners filed down, I am not sure why they thought that was a good idea in a product for children), and there is a layer of Pellon Wrap N Zap all-cotton interfacing between the outer fabric and the satin.

I tried to serge the inner seams to keep them from fraying, but they were thick and not easy to maneuver, so it's a mess and I'm not turning the bags inside out for anyone other than maybe my sister or her kids. After I was finished and had applied fraycheck at several points I realized I probably should've serged the edges of each 'sandwich' individually before sewing them together. Oh well. Next time.