When I was little, my mom always made me a special Christmas gift. The year Zac turned one, I started that same tradition myself and made him a sock monkey. Last year, I upped my game and made him a truck quilt. This year, I really struggled as to what to make. I wanted it to be something useful, and the child did not need another blanket. It was over Thanksgiving, while I was packing his stuff to go visit the grandparents, that I realized Zac didn’t have his own suitcase. There was my answer! I spent the drive to my parents’ house browsing the web for patterns. A friend shared a link to Sara Lawson’s page, Sew Sweetness. My friend has made a few of her patterns before and assured em they were great and easy to follow. After browsing the different patterns she had on her site, I decided on her Aeroplane Bag, and immediately went to fabric.com to pick out fabric. Sara’s pattern was great and gave exact dimensions for your stabilizers and fabric pieces, and I was able to order it all at once. Because this was a bag for Zac, I wanted something fun. He loves trucks, and a quick search led me to the Riley Blake, “On Our Way” collection. It was perfect!

My fabric arrived about a week later, and I let it sit while I finished up Etsy orders and t-shirt quilts. Like last year, I greatly underestimated the amount of time I would have between Thanksgiving and Christmas to get work done for others. I was a bit of a crazy lady, and apologized to my husband daily for the disaster that my office (formally known as our dining room) had turned into. Exactly one week before Christmas, I got started on Zac’s bag.

My friend was right, and the pattern was incredible easy to follow. I consider myself a pretty advanced sewer, but I’ve never done anything like this, but I think I did pretty well, if I do say so myself! I messed up once while adding one of the inside zipper pockets, and I’ll confess- I was too frustrated to fix it, so Zac’s bag has one pocket instead of two. But, I finished the bag in about two days, and for a rookie, I don’t think I did too shabby!

This bag is the perfect size for a weekend trip away. It holds all of his clothes, plus books, a blanket, and bedtime essentials. It’s soft, but with the stabilizers, it holds its shape really well. I hope that this bag lasts him for years to come.