I re-boarded the struggle bus and powered through completing the Athena bag.
I figured out the zipper pocket that I was struggling with last week. I discovered that I needed to read one line at a time and do only that. Do not read a section at a time, do not look at the diagram. Just one line and do what it says. I didn't love that I had to topstitch some of the pink more than once on the same line.
Here are the front and back pieces of the bag and the carry strap. As you can see in my picture, I didn't do the best job at rounding the corners.
Next I had to do another zipper insertion, which went okay. Then you had to sew another piece to that.
Then I had another "what the heck?" moment. You had to use some binding pieces to cover the seams. BUT they didn't wrap around enough to cover the seam line.
I finally figured out that they weren't supposed to bind, but rather, cover. If I looked very closely in the pattern cover images, I could just make out a stitching line that led me to this conclusion. That obviously worked out a lot better. I think the piece could have been a bit narrower, but oh well. I should also add here that every direction instructed me to stitch 1/8" away from the edge of all these binding pieces, but I did 1/16" because why would I want a flappy edge on everything?
Next I had to add binding pieces to the wrong/insides of both sides of this circular piece. I had a bit of a brain struggle to figure out how to join the pre-cut bias pieces because I didn't have long enough pieces to do my usual join. I really screwed up this one and had to do a straight join. It's inside the bag, so it probably doesn't matter one bit. 
But I got it done! I felt like it was a "why is this being done this way?" scenario the whole way through. It's a useable bag, the outside looks decent, the inside doesn't. I was originally planning to do one for my daughter as well, but I think I'd rather pay for a pre-made one at this point.
The yard in general has gone from looking somewhat tidy and fresh to tired and overgrown. The weather was really nice for a few days, but I didn't make it out into the gardens to catch up on weeding and trimming. It's back to being so humid you can't breathe and I've been avoid going outside. I also noticed that some of the leaves in the trees are starting to change.
Here I was trying to sew on the first one. It didn't require a straight join, but I did end up with a weird triangle situation where I did the bias join. You can just barely see it.
After the binding was sewn to both sides of this piece, it was time to do the final assembly of the bag. It was a bit challenging for me to wrap these thick foam pieces around the rounded corners, but I eventually managed. 
And both sides. One thing the pattern didn't remind you to do that I thought was very important: open the zipper before sewing the final piece on! Maybe I sewed it together in the wrong orientation and that didn't matter? It should still be mentioned. I had to unclip this to undo the zipper.
I really struggled with sewing down the binding and actually catching it on the bottom side. Clearly I did a lousy job. And had to re-do it. I think maybe it would have done better if I'd sewn from this side like I would a quilt binding by machine--topstitch on the front so that you know the stitching will look nice and even. I didn't, it didn't. At least it's on the inside of the bag.
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| Almost there. It looks like a lunchbox at this stage. |
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| Ugh, such ugly stitching. |
Moving along to things I do better than bag-making, here are the quilts I've worked on since last week.
Jeri's, quilted with Flower Swirl. I still need to fully bind this.
Another of Jeri's, quilted with Marmalade. Another full bind to complete.
Teresa's, quilted with Circle Drama. I fully bound this one. 
Heidi's, quilted with Stardust.
And one more of Jeri's, quilted with Cosmos. Still need to bind this one too.
Keetah's, quilted with Honey.
Amber's holiday version of Lupine & Laughter, quilted with Bright Lights.
Jan's, quilted with Loop the Loop. This one needs to be bound.
Finally, one more of Jeri's, quilted with Avalon. 
Out in the garden, we harvested the last zucchini. We had to pull out the plants because they got hit hard with squash beetles. I'm worried the beetles are moving on to the other plants. I'm particularly worried about the watermelon vines. Something is definitely eating the pole bean plants and the tomatoes. Not sure if it's the same or different. Most of my tomatoes have holes in them. Hornworm? Stink bug-like creatures? Plague of locusts? Who even knows at this point. We also picked 12 tomatoes that didn't have holes and one pound, 10 ounces of beans.
Both Barred Rock hens now have the scourge. Penny's been in the garage for almost a week. We are out of bins/cages, so we left Poppy in the coop with Nugget (chocolate Orpington). Nugget is the last one standing, but we're giving her precautionary meds. She's very skittish and surprisingly fast for her girth, so the menfolk are treating both in the coop at night when they can't run since the door is closed. My husband also noticed there was raccoon poop in the extended garden run, so he had to take the fruit netting off the top and put on cattle gate and fencing as a precaution. I'm rather over nature at the moment--snakes, raccoons, wild and creepy yard, chicken bacterial diseases, spiders (a garden spider? has built an elaborate web in between the window and the screen in the sewing room so I can't open my window), etc. Except I like all the fluttering butterflies I'm seeing in the yard. We have a swallowtail chrysalis on the doorframe of the barn.
So that's about it for this week. All my check-up exams were good last week. Somehow my doctors always seemed surprised that I'm perfectly healthy. We have two and a half more weeks or so until college move-in. I'll be back Saturday with the August OMG link up.
