Woohoo!!  It’s a Mini Sew Together Bag!
A Mini Sew Together Bag has two pockets and is smaller than its big sister.

(Two Regular Sew Together Bags and Four Mini Sew Together Bags)

While I love my regular-sized bag, I really wanted one that was just a bit smaller.  

UPDATE:  I have re-written the pattern completely into a stand-alone pattern.  It can be found on PayHip.   

Here are some photos of the bag in process…and completed! For more information, refer to this post.

I was able to crank out four Minis in about a day and half; I think it went so quickly because I had already made a couple of the bigger bags. Before I wrote the new pattern, I had to refer to The Quilt Barn’s Tutorial when I became stuck. 

Now everything is included in the pattern.

For the tab ends, I didn’t necessarily slide them all the way to the end of the zipper before I sewed them on (and by the way, refer to the pattern for an easier way to make them, rather than the tutorial).  Instead I played with the tab ends a bit, sliding them up and down the zipper, seeing how big of a “handle” I wanted.  Most of the time I placed the zipper about halfway into the tab end.

And that shiny thing in front?  For adjunct teachers who use white board markers, you know what a mess the eraser makes in your tote bags. The Community College administrators where I teach give us the white board markers free at the beginning of the school year, but we buy our own erasers. If you leave yours in the classroom, you can kiss it goodbye, so we carry the erasers (and markers) back and forth to class.

To keep my sew together bag clean, I made a clear vinyl pouch, sewing a self-binding fabric strip around the top to hold my eraser.  The dimensions were 7″ by 6 1/2″ of clear vinyl; sew two folded strips along the 7″ sides, then with WST, sew the side seams.  Yes, I did a tiny “boxing in” of the bottom corner to accommodate the eraser. 

Mini Sew Together, fully loaded for school.  But this would also be great stacked with hexies, or other smaller hand-sewing projects.  Because the Mini is a smaller size, it will fit into…smaller places!

I also made a matching tote bag to go with this for a gift, as California will be phasing out our plastic grocery bags.  I used my Grocery Bag Tutorial, found *here.*  The usual request applies: don’t embed the pattern on your blog, refer your friends back to OPQuilt.com to download their own.  And if you Pin anything from this post, please use the correct post address. These little Minis are fun to make and fun to use, and sew up quickly for a cute and fun Christmas gift!

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In case you are looking for the Circle EPP Quilt-A-Long, because I gave you two renditions of the block in November, we are taking a vacation in December.  Merry Christmas all you EPP-ers and we’ll see you in January.

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I get my zippers from ZipperStop in NYC.  There are other places to locate good quality, inexpensive zippers mentioned on other quilty blogs and in the comments (so check them out), but I can highly recommend Zipperstop, having placed several orders from them.  The zippers arrive quickly, and in the color range I like and I like the prices.

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