I finally got around to making a Tiny Happy bag. What a great and easy pattern. I've been off on a bit of an explore around blog land recently and Tiny Happy was one of my felicitous finds. I made it for my friend Yolande who is just so good to me. Like good enough to come around with baby Panadol when I'm at home on my own at night and Tilly has a headache because she fell off some play equipment at the park earlier in the day. I've been wanting to make her something for a while and it was her birthday last week, so it was the perfect chance to try out the pattern. (But first I had to promise to make Tilly a pig from a pretty ugly book called "Soft Toys to Sew". I've got to say, it's not going well, and there is not a lot of love going into it!)
Generous amounts of love, however, did go into the bag. And the tutorial was so easy to follow. I only had difficulty with the part about joining the tubular type straps together at the shoulder. Also, it involves having hand stitching right on the shoulder where the most strain will be. Without being presumptuous, I would like to say that there is an easier way! I vaguely remember having to join self faced shoulder straps on the maternity dress I made myself a while back, and I did a little experiment, and yes, there is a way of joining two tubular ends. I thought someone else might find the method useful, so I took some pictures.
1. With right sides together you join the two pieces to create the 'tube' (eg joining the bag to the lining for the Tiny Happy bag). BUT, don't go all the way to the end on the same side of each end. Leave about 6cm (approx an inch and a half).
2. Trim the seam allowance,
3. Turn right way around and press.
4. Open up the end and join them together so you have wrong sides facing and sew across the end.
5. Turn it back the right way and slip stitch the opening. And thus your two ends are neatly joined together.