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Purse Palooza :: Pattern Review: Michelle Patterns Bucket Bag

This post is part of Purse Palooza 2012.
For full schedule of guest post pattern reviews and prizes, click here!

Erin of Two More Seconds has lots of beautiful projects on her blog that are wonderfully photographed – I’m a bit jealous of how great everything always looks on there! She is also the founder and coordinator of Sewing Summit, a yearly conference for sewing bloggers (which I will be teaching 2 classes at!).

When Sara first asked me to be part of Purse Palooza I was SUPER scared! I don’t really do patterns, let alone purses or bags. I’m pretty terrified of them, in fact. So I really scoured around and tried to make sure to pick a pattern that I KNEW I couldn’t fail at, and Keyka Lou patterns (which have recently been re-branded as Michelle Patterns) came pretty highly recommended wherever I read about them. I picked the Bucket Bag with the idea in mind of making kind of a trinket/treasure bag for one of my little boys. Here’s what I thought about the process:

Purse Palooza Keyka Lou Bucket Bag

What fabrics / interfacing did you use to make yours?
As I mentioned, I was planning on making a knapsack type bag for one of my little boys so I looked at my stash & tried to pick out some of the most boyish / rugged fabrics I had. I ended up using a chocolate brown corduroy & some cool diagonal stripes for the lining. I used Pellon brand fusible fleece for the interlining & actually didn’t use any interfacing because the corduroy was pretty substantial feeling.

 Purse Palooza Keyka Lou Bucket Bag

Pattern Pieces & the pattern itself
The pattern came as a .pdf & I easily printed off the pattern pieces on my printer. Then I threw the .pdf into my Dropbox account so I could access it from my iPad & give it a quick read-through before attempting to sew it up. What can I say – I told you I was intimidated! I loved how the pattern had hotlinks to definitions of different terms or processes that everyone (ahem, me) might not be familiar with.

 Purse Palooza Keyka Lou Bucket Bag

Illustrations/Instructions
The instructions & illustrations were great! Full color beautiful pictures & nice step by step directions that were concise but gave enough information to make sense. The only one teeny part that could have had a little clearer instructions were when you sewed on the strap, but only probably because I was super scared I was going to sew it on backwards or twisted or something, but really, that is probably just a personal preference.

Modifications
I didn’t make any – besides leaving out the interfacing. If I made it again I might make the strap longer so it would be more of a cross-body bag, but this length works great as a purse, and works cross-body for my 5 year old.

 Purse Palooza Keyka Lou Bucket Bag

Difficulty Level
I’d say confident beginner. It’s definitely not difficult, but there’s a few fun things you get to do – like sew darts & sew a base onto the bottom! I sewed it from start to finish in about 2.5 hours, so that’s pretty do-able for an evening project.

Conclusion
I really really like this bag! The biggest compliment though was when I showed Mason and he said “Thanks Mom! That looks like it can hold lots of rolls of toilet paper!!” (One of his chores in our house is to make sure all the toilet paper holders are filled up, and he has to bring the rolls 2 flights of stairs from the storage room in the basement, so presumably that’s what he had in mind?!)

I like the fully lined pocket on the outside, and the overall shape of the bag. It’s really roomy! I would definitely make it again, which is not something I ever thought I’d say about an actual purse from a pattern, so that’s a pretty high compliment.

 Purse Palooza Keyka Lou Bucket Bag

Thanks for challenging me into trying something new, Sara!

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11 thoughts on “Purse Palooza :: Pattern Review: Michelle Patterns Bucket Bag

  1. DianeY says:

    I’ve made this bag about 5 times & I absolutely love it!! The pattern is really well drafted & it turns out so cute. My only modification was to make the handle a little longer-I’m tall & I like a shoulder bag to hit me a little lower. I may have also added a variety of inside pockets & a magnetic snap-I can’t remember what was actually in the pattern, but I usually customize the pockets anyway

  2. christinaree says:

    Great job! I have this pattern too and enjoyed it! I have a lot of Michelle’s patterns and they are all really great and easy to follow!

  3. Mrs. Podge says:

    Looks like a great Christmas gift idea! Stuff a coordinating scarf and gloves in there, and you’re done.

  4. QuiltSwissy says:

    Go Mason, good toilet paper holder, that is priceless!
    glen

  5. Your bag turned out wonderful for a little man and his comment about the toilet paper made my night! That’s awesome! Janelle

  6. Maggie says:

    I adore this pattern, have made a few bags using it. Absolutely LOVE it as a boy’s bag and the fabrics you chose are amazing. Great job!!

  7. Unknown says:

    Itn India – offering best quality product and services to the garment industry in India
    http://www.itnindia.com/

  8. This is a great bag! Love your fabric choices.

  9. looks great. I love her patterns.

  10. Jenny says:

    i have had this pattern for months! im just afraid to bite the bullet! great review

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