Double pleated chevron bag

From the minute I saw this grey chevron fabric at work a vision of a new bag started bubbling in my head. It took 3 months to make it come to life and get it just the way I wanted it. To be honest I still have a few adjustments to make it just perfect but this is pretty darn close!

I bought this grey chevron duck cloth the day it came in at work, it was my very first day actually. I knew I wanted pleats and a yellow top panel but not much aside from that. Over the next few weeks I sat in the middle of the living room every night with the chevron duck, yellow duck, grey piping, and pins pleating and re-pleating and looking at it from every angle and was never really satisfied. Then Jeff made a suggestion-lose the piping- and instantly this design was born! Even once I had it just the way I wanted it and all measured out I hesitated to cut anything until I was out fabric shopping and found this wonderfully soft  grey twill. I knew immediately it had to be the interior for my bag.

I added a zipper pocket that's nice and roomy inside. Right before I added the slip pockets I thought it needed a little something so I found the perfect shade of yellow in a Kona cotton and made a trim. I usually like a lighter color for the interior so it's easy to find your stuff but I think the trim really helps the pockets stand out.

This is a very spacious bag! It's 21" across the top, 17 1/2 " at the bottom, 14" high (minus handles) and 5 inches deep. The handles sit 12" from the top of the bag and are padded with fleece making it a very comfy shoulder bag.

I added a zip closure on this bag, can you see the zip tab peaking out on the left side? I had been wanting to try a zipper closure on my bags for a while. The first one I tried was TERRIBLE and I was nervous to try again until I got Lisa Lam's new book A Bag For All Reasons and she had an awesome tutorial for it! I love Lisa Lam and have learned a lot from her so I just trusted her book to get me through it and I'm so glad I did!