Itai!

 I've wanted to try making an ita bag for a while.  When I finished the patchwork jacket, I decided that my next project would be that bag.

I made a stack of the materials I had that seemed suitable--clear vinyl purpose bought from Joann, some glitter vinyl and several pieces of free-table cloth from the craft thrift store, leftover scraps of the glowworm green lining, bag zippers from Wawak, webbing and hardware salvaged from some baby thing from the kiddo's extreme youth, a stack of thrifted embroidery stabilizer, and a whole lot of Wonder Under and fusible webbing

I knew I didn't want to do a style with a heart-shaped window (I'm not a heart-shape person), and decided to rein myself in and not do anything complicated.  The only odd thing was that the glitter vinyl sheets had been used a bit, so I had to figure out how to work around that.

I absolutely made up every part of this as I went along.

The first decision I had to make was how to handle the edges of the vinyl.  I decided to leave it raw and exposed, because I didn't want to deal with turning the edges on stuff I wouldn't really be able to press, especially since the front glitter vinyl has the clear vinyl under all of it, and there's also heavy embroidery stabilizer under that, behind the glitter vinyl.  I didn't want this to be floppy.

I used a leather needle for all of the initial front stitching, then switched to a regular heavy needle for the rest.  The glitter vinyl, and the navy vinyl on the bottom, has a woven scrim, so it was fairly cooperative.

This edge finish decision meant I had to sew the zipper on by placing it under the vinyl (all the layers of it) and stitching along the outer edge of the vinyl while catching the lower edge of the zipper.  It was weird, but it went better than I expected.  I only had to re-do a small area on the back, where there's bias binding on the edge, so there were no problems with removing the stitches.

I still had to pick out and re-do some of the vinyl stitches on the front when I realized I'd forgotten to insert the strap.  At that point I did consider making this a backpack, but...nah.

The main zipper is a two-pull bag zipper that almost reached all the way around the sides and top.  I ended up sewing little pieces of folded vinyl on the zipper ends to fill in the space.

Of course I barely measured anything involved in this project.  I'm not quite sure the way I used the ruler could really be described as 'measuring' as much as 'just making sure things are even.'  It ended up being 13" x 10" (33cm x 25cm.)  I didn't measure it until I started making this post.

The back is a nice upholstery sample, Covington Jackie-O in the Isle Waters color. I cut it for the zipper wt what seemed like a good height, following the grain of the fabric.  Like I said, barely anything measured.

I added the webbing loop because I had to cut one of the pieces of strap webbing to be the same as the other, so had a few inches extra that I knew I'd never do anything else with, so why not.  I made the star charm entirely so there would be something to hang from the webbing loop.

There was a small amount of unavoidable but vital hand sewing to close up the bottom and back of the zipper ends.  My visible hand stitching is never going to be good, but, as long as it's inconspicuous, it's fine.

I managed to cut the lining pieces for the back pocket from the last large bits of the green lining fabric, but there were no more pieces large enough to line the inside of the main pocket.

Which was fine!  I had no plans for this textured blue cotton, so this is as good a use as any.

In retrospect, I could have made the welt pocket lining from the green.  This is fine.

I attached the main pocket lining by folding the edges in and stitching from the outside through the stitching holding on the zipper, which was applied over the stitching holding all of the front panel layers together.  I managed to make the panel lining the front--which has a zipper in it to access the pin holder--a touch narrow, so I had to pick out the stitches and fold the edges under a little less, in an attempt to eke out as much width as possible

and still managed to sew one area too far from the edge, leaving the part that should have been stitched to the inside to flap free.  I did not feel like picking out the stitching and sewing it again, so there it is, with some rough hand stitches holding things down.

Opening the zipper in the front gives access to the pin holder, which is a layer of upholstery-weight cotton (Covington Pebbletex in Caribbean, which had been stapled to the Jackie-O), two layers of heavy embroidery stabilizer, and some more of the green lining.  I pressed all edges under and edge stitched around everything, entirely so I wouldn't have to deal with turning all those layers right-side-out.

The pin holder is attached with four four-part snaps, arranged in a way that, in theory, means it can only be attached in one direction.  I also did a lot of extra stitching on the lower right corner to help keep things straight.  Maybe.

I think it turned out OK!  And was reasonably fun to make.

The thing is, I only wanted to make an ita bag.  I'm not sure if I actually want an ita bag.

That said, there's nothing saying I might not want to make another one, sometime.  Maybe.