The Backpack Bee - Part 2

Someone needs to stop me before I go to the fabric store, go through my fabric stash, and go through my reference books & magazines.  I think I must have changed my design for my backpack at least four or five times during the day.  Sometimes I asked son #2 for his input (which he is really reluctant to give, probably for fear of my design defensiveness, LOL); sometimes the Sewing Assistant put his two cents (and paws) in, whether I asked him to or not.  My biggest problem was that last night I had set aside the fabrics that I had planned to use, and started embroidering the flap.

The lurvely tattoo embroidery from Urban Threads, up on my machine's onboard computer screen.  Yes, that's right.  My sewing machine is smarter than me.

The embroidery starting to stitch out.  At Warp Speed. 

The Sewing Assistant decided he didn't particularly like having the embroidery thread  lined up in stitching order and set about stuffing it underneath the machine bed and launching some off the worktable.  Also at Warp Speed. 

After removing the Sewing Assistant and hunting down all the spools of thread, the embroidering could resume.

I finished up the embroidery last night and packed everything together to work on cutting out the backpack parts in the morning.  Only when I picked up where I left off.....I realized I needed the little sliders for the straps so I headed to Joanns Fabrics.  In the daylight I had decided that I didn't like the fabric I'd picked for the main body, so while I was at Joanns, I poked my way through the red tag clearance stuff, looking for home dec weight fabric that would go with the colors of the embroidery a bit better.  (Note to self:  in the future, choose the fabric FIRST.  Then choose the embroidery thread to match the fabric.  Duh.)  Not seeing any that would fit the bill, I bought the sliders, some cord stops, and Stampington's Haute Handbags:

Too many ideas!   Too little time!   AAAUUUUGGGHHHHHH!

I then came home and decided to go through my fabric stash - again - to see if I had something that would pick up the embroidery colors better.

Three hours later......

This is about the fourteenth incarnation!

So now I have cut out all the parts except for the interfacing and the lining.  I have to do a bit of finessing on the upper flap portion; that embroidery is so small in comparison to the rest of the bag it would have gotten lost.  I'm planning to frame it up with that home dec trim you can see in the upper part of the photo - that will all have to be done prior to working on the rest of the bag.  

Good thing I took a photo of how I wanted to put this all together, because - no big surprise -

But I kan helpz!  I kan press out all the wrinklees!  See?

Kitteh don' like dis trimz!  You shud pick anudder one!

Is too long?  I iz helping cutz off this end!  

At this rate, I should get the backpack done by about the year 2014.