Bag First

An awkward reality of conventions is that you need a bag, because unlike people on TV, you need to have a wallet and a phone and a camera and stuff on your person when walking around all day. Your costume may not provide one. Calliel on Craftster sums up the dilemma well here (and solves it pretty fantastically, too).

The character I'm doing this year* does at one point carry a briefcase, but never with this costume, so I decided to just go the matching bag route. Last year I did a matching bag (you can see it here) but I did it very last minute. This year I decided to do the bag first.



(Wow, this red is really hard to photograph!)

It's not perfect by any means. I was having much trouble with my bobbins-- turns out, do NOT use Class 66 bobbins with a Brother machine-- so there are tangled threads and bad tension problems all over the place, but I'm fairly happy with it. This is the first bag I've really tried to construct. It has a zipper and stabilizer and lining and all that good stuff - whereas last year I just made a fold-over tote with a cardboard magazine file in it for structure (I'm serious).



Check it out, shiny lining and all. No magazine file this year. Now I just need to get on with the dress and the jewelry and stuff. You know, the actual costume...

*No I haven't told you what character - you can guess if you want ;)