The Lisa Lam Diaper Bag

Sometimes the Fabric Comes First

Okay, for me, the fabric comes first a lot.  I am a lot like those designers on Project Runway that go to Mood without knowing what they are going to make.  I see fabric and sometimes it tells me what it wants to be.  Other times, it is like a little whisper in my ear, "You want me, you know you do, you should take me home."  Even more often than that, it's like a three year old throwing a temper tantrum, "But you have to take me home with you!!!!  You like me so much!!!! How could you even think of leaving here without me!!!!"  And so I buy some.  I think this goes a long way in explaining my extensive fabric collection.

A while ago, I was at Bolt, a local fabric store that has very cute quilting fabrics and crazy gorgeous clothing fabrics.  And I happened upon this beauty:

It screamed awesome bag.  I knew I had to have some, but without a super specific project in mind, the question is, how much to get?  I knew that there were several cute bag patterns in the One Yard Wonders book but figured I would want something bigger than that, so I settled on a yard and a half.

After walking by the fabric several times at home, I realized that what made the most sense given it's cutesy, fun, bright nature, was to make a diaper bag.  Plus, I knew a friend who was in the market for one :)  I went to my favorite bag book, A Bag for All Reasons and there it was, the darn cutest diaper bag ever!  The best part, I totally had enough fabric!

The Making

I went to Fabric Depot to get all the interfacing and lining and got cutting.  It was so much cutting.  I took me over four hours to get all the pieces cut, so many pockets!  Then began the epic search for hardware.  Wow, this was SO HARD.  I went to ever store I could think of, including the leather supply store, including JoAnn's (and I don't go there for much).  I finally found some good stuff back at Bolt, thank goodness.  The sewing went pretty smoothly and I was very happy with my choice to go with a little lighter weight interfacing on the exterior and compensate with a little heavier interfacing on the interior.  Again, this was a lesson learned from making Amy Butler Weekender bags (you can find photos of those on Flickr, I promise, one day, I will take better photos!!!).

I also took the bag to work  to confirm that I had added enough pockets in the right places (the directions were a little confusing).  There are a lot of moms at work and since I am not one, I had no idea what you put in a diaper bag.  They were uber helpful, thanks ladies!

Getting ready to sew the interior and the exterior together!
Also, a good view of all the interior pockets.

The Bag

It turned out terribly cute!!!!!  I actually went back to Bolt and bought several more yards of the outside fabric so I could make a couple more :)

The pattern is just fantastic with this fabric.  Squeal!

One of my favorite things is that the bag is big, but not TOO big.