Welcome to the Island Batik Sew Stylish Challenge with ByAnnie! Our challenge this month is to stitch up a beautiful bag with the Byannie.com pattern of our choice. I always enjoy the ByAnnie bags that we make, and this year is no exception.

I wanted to have my post coincide with National Handbag Day, which is today!! Happy National Handbag Day!! Before we move on to this year’s bag, here are the bags from previous years I have made using ByAnnie patterns.

Moving on, for this year, I chose the On the Go 2.0. This is the perfect size bag for me. Back when I was young and foolish, I thought I had to carry everything, including the kitchen sink, in my purse! Now that I’ve gotten older matured, I really don’t like carrying around a lot of extra stuff! This little cross body bag is perfect for me! And I love the three fabrics I chose, which are from the Fossil Finesse collection by Kathy Engle for Island Batik.

ByAnnie’s patterns are wonderful. Not only do they include check boxes to click off as you complete each step, they include labels for the cut pieces, diagrams, and even have add-on videos to guide you through the more difficult steps. ByAnnie’s website has a lot of resources such as videos for adding zippers, zipper pulls, binding, etc.

This bag is quilted. For that I used Hobbs Fusible batting. It helped to hold the front and backing fabric in place while I quilted it. I used a simple serpentine cross hatch quilting using my walking foot on my domestic machine. The binding is on the inside and, instead of stitching it down by machine, as I could not get it to look like I wanted it to, I stitched it down by hand. Here is a look at the inside of the bag (with card pockets) prior to putting it all together. For me, the binding is the hardest part of making this bag!

Annie has you prepare all the “parts” of the bag prior to putting them together. Once all the prep work is done, the bag goes together really quickly. And here is my finished On the Go 2.0 Bag! I chose to use fabric instead of vinyl for the front pocket (first photo). When the flap is open (second photo), there is a vinyl pocket for my ID. There is also a large pocket on the back (third photo.) There is a double zipper on the top of the bag and a single zipper pocket on the front. Click on the photos to enlarge and get a better view!

Stats:

Pattern: On the Go 2.0 from ByAnnie.com.
Fabric: Fossil Finesse by Kathy Engle for Island Batik.
Batting: Hobbs Double Sided Fusible.
Thread: Aurifil 50 wt. from my stash.
Needle: Schmetz 80/12 Nonstick.
Iron: Oliso Mini Pro.

Many thanks to Lumin Fabrics/Island Batik, Patterns by Annie, Hobbs Batting, Schmetz Needles, Aurifil, and Oliso for providing the supplies to make this perfect for me bag!!

Fossil Finesse is a Spring 2025 collection and is in stores . You can find it at these locations.

Checker Distributors	OH
Hawthorne Supply Co.	NY
Checker Distributors	OH
Creekside Quilts	TX

I hope you will visit my fellow ambassadors this month as they share their byAnnie bags throughout the month of October.

Thanks for joining me. Until next time…