Another Message

When a friend's little boy celebrated his 2nd birthday a while back, I racked my brain to think of just the right gift. Why is it that I have always have about a million good ideas when I don't need them, but as soon as I find myself in a situation where such an idea would come in handy, I draw a blank?

Anyway, after some serious cogitation, I came up with a simple, obvious solution. Why not make another messenger bag? Little Man thoroughly loves his Mater messenger bag, so I though my friend's little fellow might feel the same. 

I used Zaaberry's Kid's Messenger Bag Tutorial once again, because it's just right. Just like the first time, I made the strap fabric narrower so it wouldn't be too thick. I lined the bag in khaki twill -- fortunately, I was able to use stash fabric for everything, because my procrastination left me little time to put this together.

My friend and her husband are huge Apple fans, so I used that as an inspiration for the leather motif stitched to the front. I added some subtle topstitching across the flap, and then applied a leather apple with wonder-under. I'd already punched holes with an awl, so I all I had to do was stitch the apple on -- this was before I sewed the flap to the flap lining (in other words, all of the extra stitching is hidden inside the flap). 

It may take a while for my friend's son to "grow" into the bag -- I can't recall what Little Man was like at that age -- but hopefully he'll get several years of use out of it!