I finished the bags! I was able to get three of them mailed out on Christmas eve, seven will be hand-delivered this weekend, and the last one is waiting for a companion present that is not my responsibility. Here are photos as evidence - the backs and inside fabrics are shown in the second photos, in the same arrangement as the fronts.
I had to go back late in the process to get a different zipper for one of the plant bags (bottom left in top photo) - for some reason the final zipper I had on hand was light orange, which didn't match at all. I think the blue is a huge improvement! I also ended up shifting around the plan for the recipients of the bags - I was going to send the dancer to Dancypants, for example, but I ended up thinking there was a different one that was a better match for her, and four others shifted around at the same time. I'm very pleased with the final assignments - hope everyone likes theirs!
I'm so pleased with the new interfacing - it is sturdy but not stiff, and easy to work with. Two of the bags actually make use of mistakes from my last round of making bags, where I ironed the previous interfacing to the inside fabrics, and they are not as great as the new ones (you can see the yellow one in the bottom photos is more wrinkled than the others, even after much ironing). But, I think it'll be ok.
I'm also annoyed with myself because I didn't do a great job with the zipper tabs - I should have left more space between then end of the zipper and the end of the tab so they would flip out better. If I hadn't done such an assembly line, I could have caught that in the later bags, but since fixing that would require taking apart every seam, I decided I needed to move on. Hopefully I can fix that in the next ones!
When I get home, I'll finish the two bags for my other team members, and try to stay motivated to finish the three for me. Two of those will be straightforward, but one is a bit more complicated as I had picked out many fabrics with some goal of making an extra fancy bag. However, I don't remember what my grand plan was, so I have to come back to that (and strangely, one of the fabrics that was in my prep photo has gone missing, so I either have to find that or decide not to use it). Will be good to get those finished and all the bits & pieces put away, and then I can start to think about projects for 2026!
Related, I have started working on a cute little hedgehog - I don't know what fate this little guy will have, but it's a nice project to take on the plane. After I stitch the front (see photo, I've done the outside so far), then I sew it to the back and stuff it up to make a little 3D creature.
Looking forward to arts & crafts fun in the new year!
- Catherine
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