Mommy Poppins Bag [Pattern Test and Review]

When the lovely Jodi over at Sew Fearless asked me to test her new pattern for this here bag,

there was little hesitation.

My actual thought in response to her email was, "omg... okay so wait at least 5 minutes before you respond or she'll think you're a total stalking freak."

You see, Jodi made her first Mommy Poppins Bag what feels to me like FOREVER ago,

and I've been borderline coveting it ever since.

(Okay, NOW she'll think I'm a total stalking freak.)

Anywayz... I've used Jodi's patterns before for my nephew's Christmas gift Pajama Eaters (link to pattern here),

and for Ben's Sidekick Suitcase (link to pattern here), which I have to say we use about every weekend.

Jodi is super talented sewing things herself, but she really shines in the clarity of her patterns.

The directions are not only thorough, but there are plenty of pics alongside.

PLUS, whenever I've had a problem, she always obliges me with a quick and helpful tip.

Monday marked the release of this new pattern, and if you head over to Sew Fearless,

which I strongly suggest you do, you can enter (this week) her giveaway for some free bag patterns and one lucky person will win all the necessary hardware (my favorite part).

So the details:

The Mommy Poppins Bag is a nice roomy handled bag with a "carpet bag" style closure at the top.

It has four, count em FOUR good sized pockets on the interior in addition to the main compartment, as well as two exterior pockets, one featuring a nice accent flap.

I used this geometric print from Joann's for my main fabric.

I chose that first, loved it, and then chose my accents from there.

The brown corduroy seemed to match nicely, and then I got a little funky with the floral print for the lining. 

I know, I'm crazy like that.

The pattern includes directions for attaching the handles to the D rings by sewing, which I had originally planned to do as I have never riveted anything before,

but once I got started and saw how everything was coming along...

I just knew.

I knew the way you know about a good melon.

Had to rivet.

And I'm beyond happy with the results.

I had a hard time finding double capped rivets (without waiting ions of 2 days for delivery), so I ended up with single capped rivets, and I just made sure to the put the capped side on the exterior of the handles.

All in all, I LOVE this bag, and the pattern was a nice new challenge for me, but not so difficult that I got frustrated. For those of you who know me or have been following the blog for awhile, you'll know that I'm somewhat pattern illiterate.

In my opinion, though, this pattern reads more like a lot of online tutorials than a pattern you would find at the store, but with much more clarity than many tutorials. Best of both worlds.

So give it a shot!

If I can do you, SEW can you!

See what I did there?