Mario Marigold Messenger Bag - By Blue Calla

Continuing the tradition of waiting until last minute to start gifts, I recently decided that making a messenger bag for a cousin in a week (or less) was a GREAT idea!  He was turning 7, so it needed to be one that wasn't too huge, or too small, and had some fun features.  When he was younger I made him a tiny messenger style bag, so he was ready for something larger.  Messenger bags are generally gender neutral, but somehow most of the patterns I owned seemed to be more 'girly' so I went on the hunt for a fast and more 'manly' style.  There are tons of free patterns out there, plus even more guides on making your own, but I really wanted something I could throw together without worrying about anything going wrong or the measurements being slightly off.

Metal ring is a bit too big, but it keeps the flap down for sure!

Blue Calla Marigold Messenger to the rescue!  I already know her patterns come together very nicely, and this one looked a little more stylish than the other free ones. Outside has 2 slip pockets and 2 pen pockets under the flap, and then inside has more slip pockets, a zipper pocket, and an ipad pocket.  I left off the Velcro closure since I was REALLY running out of time...we were half an hour late to the party because I was finishing!

Digging into my stash supplied some awesome Mario fabric, which is one of his favorite things.  (Minecraft is slightly higher, but I was informed by my resident Minecraft experts that the pixel fabric I had on hand wasn't 'right' so I skipped it) 

That's a lot of characters!

My favorite part was this little tag.  I have a stash of them I got with a preorder of pixel fabric, and I never have the right place to put them!  I used the satin stitch on my machine, set to 0 for the length, and it made this nice edging!

I think the next time I make the pattern I'll add on another pocket to the back, but I just didn't have time to do the modifications on this one!  It's definitely a nice size for carrying everything, without being super huge!  And lots of pockets are perfect!

Best part, he started using it right away to carry some of his other presents in!  Yay!