Making the Bag with precious Echino

I have decided to make some stuff from patterns.

I have gone a little big overboard recently with buying fabric, but also, I've had some stuff hanging around for a long time, and it's time to make some stuff!

This weekend I bought the Noodlehead Super Tote pattern:

A paper copy from Pink Castle Fabrics

And I was thinking - I have this Echino hanging around...

Quite literally hanging around.

And wouldn't those Dear Stella snails make a great lining?

Amazing, right?

The trouble is, you look at the pattern and it calls for half a yard of focus fabric for the front, and a yard of contrast fabric for the gusset. And, of course, I have half a yard of the contrast, and a yard of the focus, and I'm not actually cool with that idea.

So, I'm holding off on this bag. I actually have another yard of classic Echino on its way to me (from Country Fabrics and Quilting which you should totally visit, because they have some hard to find prints in their collection; also SuperBuzzy has a lot of prints from older lines - though I haven't ordered from them yet, also, there's always Etsy!) so I suspect this bag will still be happening soon. But I will use something less precious for the gusset - Essex linen, perhaps?

Did you get that I'm obsessed with Echino? I'm obsessed with Echino.

In the meantime I've made the 241 tote as I initially intended. It only takes a half yard of feature and contrast fabric! This isn't the first time I've made a bag, but it's the first time I've used a pattern to make a bag. There's a lot to learn, that I wish I'd known earlier. Especially about interfacing and linings (Sara of Sew Sweetness has a great post on bag interfacing if you need somewhere to start).

I had this fat eighth of bugs in my Echino scrap pile! So excellent.

Sadly, it's not actually big enough for all the stuff I feel need to cart around with me (looking at you, lunchbox!) So, I really do need to buckle down and make the super tote. Then I start to wonder... would it be weird if my 241 and my super tote had the same feature fabric? I do have a half yard of it left after all...  I think that carrot linen would make an excellent contrast. Or the lime green? hmmm....  I mean, it's not like I would be carrying both at once.

But what I really want to do right now is make another 241 tote! They're so fun! And I have just the fabric for it, too...