Bendy Bags and Seam Rippers

There's been quite a lot of sewing going on over the last few weeks, just not any blogging about it - until 2 days ago, anyway.
I made my first Bendy bag a few weeks ago.

This one came together beautifully, I read the pattern carefully and worked my way through step by step, without any problems. The only problem was the sewing machine which misbehaved and was traded away.
Number Two wasn't quite so easy, operator error. I obviously didn't pay close enough attention to the instructions, but it turned out well, too.

The third one, though, ..... well, let's not go into details other than to say everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Not the pattern's fault, partially again, not paying close enough attention and partially the material. It's ............ oh, no ................. pleather. Not really that hard to work with, but not as easy as quilting cottons.

All those problems notwithstanding, I love this bag. This one is definitely mine.

One thing I haven't quite resolved in my mind (a lot of my sewing prep goes on in my head) is the issue of thread color. I like to use matching thread whenever possible. So, that's brown for the zipper and the seams, but after changing threads back and forth several times while cleaning up the seams on the inside in the first two bags, I got tired of it and just stuck with brown on this one. I wonder how anybody else making these bags handles that issue.

I can highly recommend the pattern, it's a pretty quick project and the result is just plain good and enjoyable. Love the way the leftover zipper is used as a tab. Any problems I encountered were not in any way related to the pattern. And I will definitely make more, not that I need more bags.

As I said, I ran into problems, especially with the last bag and the seam rippers and I got to be really good friends.
My husband took up wood turning last year and after making lots of pens of various kinds and moving on to bowls and hollow vessels and segmented bowls (I really need to write a blog post about his projects), he made me a couple of seam rippers which where quick projects. He has also moved from wood to stone and used a slice left over from one of my pens to embellish my newest seam ripper.
I like that they are safe, you just pull out the whole metal piece and pop it into the opening backwards, no danger of poking yourself.
So, here are my new best friends:

Pattern used: Bendy bag by Lazy Girl.
Fabrics: mostly out of my embarrassingly large stash, except for the pleather which was bought just for this project.