Pleats part deux

So maybe I was a bit bolshy with bag progress last night. After I blogged about how I was about to start on *the* bag; it would be fab, it would be ace, it would be ........ crap!

Here is where I feel it all started going wrong; instead of keeping the pattern pieces to the prototype bag that actually worked and starting from scratch, I decided to write all over that with what I wanted to do on the new bag (which was daft to start with), I then cut the pieces up to make a new pattern.....


...leaving me with no pattern when it transpired that I had forgotten how to make the bag of my dreams...
I went to bed, almost blind and trying to work out why the fabric was doing what it was doing and why on earth I couldn't work out how to mend it. So for another night I dreamt about bags, curves and angles and woke up convinced that I *must* have the answer to my problems. Only I didn't. It still wouldn't work and I was now left with cut up bits of pattern, random lumps of material that I had cut off in a desperate attempt to make it work and not a lot of patience so the man who tried to sell me life insurance had a fun conversation with me when he rang up in a bid to save me money.

After lunch I gave up on my initial idea and took a step back. I made new pattern pieces then resorted to tracing around the front of my bag at the right position to get the back with the right angles and preyed to the sewing goddess....


then still cut bits off to make it how I wanted it to look and it ended up, rather miraculously, looking like this....