Muh-muh-muh my kotatsu!

Now I've got "My Sharona" stuck in my head. Anyway, it's finally come! Kotatsu season is here. I resisted as long as I could, but I gave in last night. Considering I could see my breath walking to the music festival I think it was definitely time. Oh, how I love my kotatsu. Of course, it's warmed up a little bit today, from 10 degrees Celsius to a whopping 12 degrees, so I didn't need to turn it on this morning. Oh well. It doesn't hurt to have it out a little early. Also, sewing under the kotatsu is the nicest feeling ever.

Anyway, enough about my magical heated table of dreams and unicorns. I finished the fish bag the other day! What has it taught me? That I need more practice with the sewing machine. I need to figure out how to keep the tension on the thread tight, which means I have to delve into the all-Japanese manual at some point in the near future. AWESOME. At least I'll learn some new words. But in any case, shoddy sewing not-withstanding I'm happy with the way it's come out. I lined it with a lighter blue fabric with I think gives a nice contrast. I'm happy with the balance of the piece. Before I sewed it together I was worried that there was too much open space on the back. "Maybe I should add more bubbles," I thought to myself. "I mean, there is that whole three square inches of open blue on the left side. There could totally be a bubble there." I ended up deciding against the bubble because I liked the asymmetrical look of the bubbles. I'm a big fan of asymmetrical designs. I myself am asymmetrical; I have three piercings in my left ear and two in my right. I'm always considering getting another piercing, but having three and three or four and two makes my teeth feel itchy. Same with the bubbles. I think I made the right decision.

First I pinned the bag together wrong sides together. I use a French seam because since this is supposed to be a bag for carrying things I want to make it as strong as possible.

  Then I made the lining, also using a French seam. I sewed it together right sides together initially because I wanted the right sides to be visible as the lining. I erred on the side of caution when sizing the lining because the last lining I made was too small so I had to do it over again, and I didn't have enough light blue fabric to make a new lining if this first one was too small. Well, it wasn't too small. It was actually a bit too big, width-wise. The length was fine, but the width had definitely reached franken-bag proportions. But it was eleven at night so I figured "I'm a problem solver, I'll make it work!" Well, with a few missteps I did make it work. I still have to sew all the bobbin threads into the bag, you can see them peeking out over the top corners, but overall I'm happy. I really enjoy the color choices, and hey, the thing will never ever break because I had to sew most of the seams three times what with measuring the lining wrong. Silver linings, right?

Coming up next? Halloween bag and a shirt!