I can’t recall when the last time was that I updated you on my Lunch Bag Progress. I had made a few versions of it and finally decided that I was going to go for it.

After making three of them, plus the beer cooler, I realized that the largest part of my time was spent cutting out all of the pieces. For each lunch bag you need a top and bottom (insulation, liner and exterior fabric), a back piece (insulation, liner and exterior), a side piece (insulation, liner and exterior), top side piece (liner and exterior) plus the top handle, the adjustable strap and two D-rings.

I had already cut out the insulating pieces.

So now I needed to cut out the exterior fabric sides,

(8 Black, 8 Burgundy, 8 Hunter Green plus 8 of each color of the thinner top side piece)

the side piece linings,

(12 Gray, 12 Camel)

and the top and bottom pieces, plus the back piece.

(8 of each back exterior, 16 of each top/bottom exterior, 12 of each color back lining and 24 of each color top/bottom lining)

Including all of the insulation pieces, lining and exterior fabric, I’ve cut out a total of 456 pieces!!! I am making 8 of each color (24 in total), with 4 of each color lined in gray and the other four in camel. I think they will look nice.

That was a lot of work, but then I started assembling the straps and D-rings.

(Addie refers to this as her ‘bling.’)

When I wasn’t sewing hardware onto nylon strapping I was hand-basting insulating pieces together.

This will help them stay together and not do a lot of shifting when I put them in the lunch bag shell. Why did I hand baste them? They were too thick to fit under the presser foot of my machines.

And that’s not all of the sewing that I’ve been doing. My friend’s son will be turning one in about a week so I had to make him some hooded towels (that’s my go-to first birthday present).

I’ve actually had this ribbon sitting around for over a year waiting for a project for my friend. She LOVES minions. So her son does, too.

Now that I’ve taken a little break I need to get back to the sewing room. I only have 456 pieces of lunch bag to start sewing…