A special gift

I have had so much support lately, from a lovely aunt, always thought of as my 'pretty auntie' when I was small- she gave me a few books for my eighth birthday- Beloved books- Little House in the Big Woods, The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, and John Masefields The Midnight Folk. She also included an invitation to be a founder member of the Puffin Club. I think it cost 5 shillings, and I had to get a postal order to send off, but I received my Puffin Posts for years. I still have them! She and I have been a mutual support system. Yes, my children, and husband have been excellent, but her children are all boys. So, we have leaned on one another a little.
So among various emails I slowly got inspired, and on Sunday I sat with a rough ( very rough ) plan to make a bag for her.

Very quickly this happened

I mentioned little ends of spools, which are clearly not big enough to go on the machine? Well, some of them went- on the machine!  You see  the ends of those petals? They have been played with by my machine, to give an extra dimension

And this now becomes part of a pocket panel. I couldn't ask about preferred colours, after all, this will be a surprise for her- so, she is getting green!

All had to come from stash, as it was a Sunday, and I wanted to just get on with it. With coronavirus, fabric shops are basically shut, you can buy online , but not go and get the stuff. I was pleasantly surprised that I had enough that co-ordinated well enough to do the whole thing. 

A zip pocket put in, I liked the lilac zip- a little quirk?  and piping above and below the panel

A pretty leafy pocket lining, with the label in,

and then that panel incorporated into the front of the bag

 a gentle anount of quilting- Keep the back fairly plain

 and put on a tab for fastening

 linings had to be pieced, but these went well together

 a small slip pocket to take a phone if needed

covered button to fasten that tab

I even managed to remember to put in the loop for a key fob to be popped in. 

This now needs to go in the post. 

And that was my whole Sunday gone!

Happy days.