Everything Bag

I finished this Everything Bag from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing. I love the fabric from Anna Maria Horner and I had originally bought it to recover a chair, however my husband begged me to reconsider. We wont get into that, let's just say he's wrong. So in my quest to use what I have and not to hoard, I cut it out for the bag. Over all I'm happy with it but I don't quite know what I'll do with such a massive bag, beach trips, market days, weekend outing? Not very everyday friendly for me at least.

I was a little disappointed in the pattern thought. I read through it several times and just knew that if I followed the directions it was going to look different than the picture. Sure enough the binding was much narrower. I even looked at the flicker group to see what other people did, and I wasn't the only one. And you know that just annoys me a little. We have a sure-fire way of avoiding those discrepancies in the publishing world, it's called "proofing". Ya know, it just would have been nice to know what I was getting. I had even tracked down the book's errata before I started and this problem wasn't mentioned.

So I guess that leads me to another question, professionalism in crafting, how important is it? I really want people in the craft world to succeed with patterns, projects, wears and books like these but how important are the details? Is the point to embrace the journey of where a project takes you, welcoming snags, uneven lines, interpretation and raw edges? Dare I say the "homemade" look. Or do we aim for carefully constructed craft that is both inspired and finished with precision, raising it to a higher level of personal expression and uniqueness? The answer lies somewhere in between I'm sure.