What happens when you don't pay attention...

Three things to be happy about:
(1) being able to read the fine print
(2) keeping a secret
(3) flexible straws

Amy at Diary of a Quilter has a great tutorial on making an easy fat quarter bag, and I thought I'd give it a try.  BUT, the one she teaches finished at something like 9 x 11 and I wanted to make mine a bit larger.  Did I get out my pad and paper and figure out the perfect size?  Of course not, I figured I could wing it!

I picked two pretty batik FQ's and a darker one for the handle, so far so good.

Here is where I deviated ... rather than cutting the FQ in half, I decided in order to make my bag bigger, all I had to do was NOT cut it, yes!!!

Because my fabric was bigger, I placed the handle at 4" from each side - clever girl!

After sewing the short ends I was pleased at how well I lined up the seams to sew the long sides...

I really like that darker green with the hints of rust!  So... I sewed the long sides, leaving a roughly 3" opening for turning, so far so good.  When I did the gusset part, I decided since the bag was bigger, I should make the gusset twice as big -  so I sewed it at 2" rather than the 1" called for in the pattern. 

Makes sense, right?  After I turned it back right side out and took a good look at it .. yech!

It finishes at 17 x 9-1/2, how wierd is that??  It's way too wide for the height - for a soft bag, that's not good a'tall!

So your lesson for today is ... take shortcuts if you must, but Pay Attention!  I'll probably use this bag for small grocery items, so it's not a total waste.   :o)

Sew forth and sew on til later!