I really liked the look of the Stowe Bag as soon as it came out - just the right balance of simple, elegant, and useful. I decided this would be great for storing my supplies at sewing class, where I have a little locker to keep my sewing and drafting kit. I got the PDF pattern a week or two before class began, thinking I could start making it more quickly than if I ordered the printed pattern (ha!), and then I wasted about a week and another $14 gearing myself up to go to FedEx to print it on the fancy super-wide paper. But as you can see, I did indeed sew the thing, and it's been hanging out in my locker at sewing school ever since. I do get to pull it out every Thursday, so it's not totally neglected, but I'm sort of trying to find an excuse to make another that I can use more than once a week.
I bought a remnant of some sort of canvas-y home goods fabric at my local fabric warehouse and got pre-made navy bias binding to contrast it. The fabric is nice and sturdy and works well here. I was planning to make this in a beautiful canvas from someone trendy like Cotton + Steel, but my thriftiness got the best of me for my first go at this bag and I went the cheap route.
I was a little surprised by how much fabric this bag took, given its compact finished size (although in hindsight it makes sense, with the boxy shape and interior pocket panels). I also had a hell of a time figuring out how to flatten and sew down the bottom so that it stays in that nice, squared-off shape. The instructions vaguely mentioned how to do this, but I ended up googling for awhile with little luck and finally figured it out myself. This (plus lots of bias binding) meant it wasn't quite as quick of a sew as I had expected, but I think I still threw it together in an evening or two.
I don't think there's much else to say - it's a good bag and a relatively quick sew!
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