Lunch bag turned craft bag

I've been in a flurry of finishing old UFOs lately, but the arrival of a new book prompted a new project. The book, Lunch Bags!, is of course first and foremost a book of bags to carry your lunch in. Now I carry my lunch to work in a plastic box inside my regular bag, so I didn't see an immediate use for a stitched lunch bag. But lately I have been going through all my bags to find one to carry my sewing and my water bottle when I go to guild meetings and quilting bees, and in this book I found just the thing. This one, designed by Debbie Hogan, was fun to sew and everything went together just the way it should. I made myself cut into my stash of Tufted Tweets for this, and I'm glad I did. The colour combination is an unusual one for me, but I really like the result and it gives me a great chance to show off some of my favourite fabrics.

On the back is a pouch for a drink bottle. I made mine in a contrasting fabric -. a Jan Mullen print, I think.

The lining is made from a great AuntyCookie print littered with quotes that are just perfect for a craft bag - "Craft is the new black", "Make quilts, not war", "Knitters ain't quitters" are some of the gems.

So now I just need to scramble my sewing things together and prepare a new hand stitching project, and I'll be ready for my next guild meeting...

Back to the book. There are lots of nice little bags in there, and although they are introduced as lunch bags, there is no reason why you can't use them for other things, like I have done. There are several I might try my hand at later, so all in all this was a good buy.