The Duffel Bag Obsession!

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Hello my Farmgirl friends!!! I get myself into some pretty crazy sewing rabbit holes… you know what I mean. You just keep getting deeper and deeper until you realize it’s really becoming a problem right? Well, here’s my story!

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It starts with a 14 year old girl that asked for summer sewing lessons from me and the one thing she wanted to make was a large duffel bag. Like a “really amazing, one of a kind duffel bag”. She is an “advanced beginner” sewist and I happened to have a pattern for a duffel bag that I had never made so I pulled the pattern out and decided to make one and see what I thought about it. My decision was that in many two-hour sewing lesson segments we could walk through it. So it was game on and let me tell you this… we had the best time together and this amazing young girl finished her duffel bag, sewing pretty much every single stitch herself! I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone so proud of their accomplishment!

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In the meantime, I showed my “sample” bag to my grand-daughters and immediately Jillian (age 17) was begging me for it! Talk about a compliment! I was so excited to gift her the bag for her numerous summer trips! Then I felt really bad that my 14 year old grand-daughter Rosetta, didn’t have a duffel bag too. That’s when I took my first step into the rabbit hole!

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Rosetta and I went to the quilt shop and she picked out the fabric she wanted for her bag. But I kept thinking about the Texas road trip that my daughter and her best friend had planned to take their three girls on… and I knew I needed to make one for Ruth (the third teenager) as well. So Rosetta picked out the fabric for Ruth’s bag and the journey began.

I loved making that second duffel bag (for Rosetta) because I only ended up with a couple frustrations. The third bag (for Ruth) went smooth as silk and I never even looked at the pattern.

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This whole time I was thinking about this gorgeous bundle of fabric that had recently been sent to me by the fabric manufacturing company, Poppie Cotton, that I am an Ambassador for. And of course I decided that I really needed a duffel bag for myself… and this fabric would be so much fun.

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That one was a little difficult due to the fact that I was dealing with small cuts of fabric (this duffel pattern calls for 3.5 yards of fabric for all the many large pieces). So it meant that I had to do a lot of “fussy cutting” and piecing for it to work. Therefore it ended up taking me quite a bit longer to make this one. But finally it was done and I am just so in love with it!

So are you keeping track? At this point in the rabbit hole I was up to FOUR duffel bags. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, mind you. I went from the first duffel bag taking me about 20 hours to get it finished (yes, I keep track of things like that) to the final bag taking about 8 hours! So, I was feeling pretty good.

I delivered the bags to Rosetta and the one for Ruth; about a week before they were leaving for their Texas trip. My daughter just made over the bags and how beautiful they were and she sweetly said “someday Mom, I’d like you to make me one” and I said “Oh maybe. But wow, I’m kind of exhausted”. End of story.

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Well, you know where this is going right? I came home and cleaned up my sewing room from all the whirlwind sewing. And suddenly I thought of this road trip the girls were heading on and I thought, “Oh how fun it would be for Andrea and Stephanie (the moms) to have duffel bags too”. Back down the rabbit hole I went and drove the very next day to the quilt shop and bought 7 more yards of fabric, 4 long zippers, the fusible foam and all the hardware (these are NOT cheap bags to make, my friends).

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Making those two bags went so smooth I was feeling rather proud of myself! I surprised my daughter with them the evening before their trip. Stephanie and Ruth arrived late that night (they live about 3 hours away) and I went down to my daughter’s at 4:30 the next morning to hug all of them goodbye. They were oohing and awing over their new “better than Vera Bradley, any day” duffel bags and thanking me profusely.

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I told them I only wanted one thing in return… “pictures of the five of you on your trip with your bags” and they were off. I breathed a sigh of relief and success as I climbed out of that rabbit hole.

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Here’s a few more pictures the girls sent me from their trip! I love them!!!

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Are you still counting? We are up to SIX duffel bags by that point.

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My girls were all gone on their road trip, I was (mostly) caught up on sewing assignments and one morning it hit me so strongly that my other most precious daughter (in-law) in Arizona might need a one of a kind duffel bag too. So you know the drill… climb back into the rabbit hole, make the one hour drive to the quilt shop, purchase the fabric and all the supplies, and make what I promised myself would be the last and final duffel bag! I’m excited to hand deliver it to her next week when I’m flying out to visit.

SEVEN duffel bags my friends!!!

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And now… if you are interested in making one of these amazing duffle bags, with great double zippers, huge interior pocket, three exterior pockets, no raw edges or ugly seams showing on the inside… click HERE to purchase “The Doable Duffel” pattern!

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So tell me… I’m dying to know! What is the rabbit hole you’ve climbed down that turned into a bit of an obsession? Leave me comment below… I’d love to know that I’m not the only one!

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Until our gravel roads cross again… so long!

Dori