A new bag for me. FOXY

My old purse is starting to look rather tired.  She's served me well for, oh, a year and a half?  But the corners are starting to wear through, and frankly, with fall and winter on the way (gasp) I wanted something darker.





Well, I dug deep into my stash and found this big piece of polished cotton that appealed to me.  As usual, I made up the pattern as I went along, but I remembered a bag that my sister had that had drawstring pockets on the front and thought they were cool.
Instead of a drawstring, I used elastic.  She's big - 14" deep and 20 inches wide with a gusset 4" wide along the sides and bottom.  As usual, I put lots of pockets on the inside, one side has 3, the other has 1 zippered pocket.  New for me was the long strap - it is adjustable to be long enough to wear across the body.  I also used a new technique for adding a zipper to the top.  By adding a 2" strip of fabric along each side of  the zipper (I used folded fabric so the fold was along the zipper teeth), and then topstitching it to the top edge of the bag, it went in rather slick.  I added a second row of topstitching.  I think I'll still add a big old button to the center band for interest.

By the way.  In case you think I'm smart or something, I sewed a pin into the bag.  Yup, discovered it between the lining and the bag after I did the first row of topstitching around the top.  Luckily, I was able to make a little slit in the lining fabric right next to the row of stitching and got it out.  The when I did the second row of topstitching, the hole was caught in between the rows and closed.  Duh moment !

Here's a peek.  I'm calling her "Foxy"