I had a young client come to be recently who is diabetic. She was looking for a cute purse to use for school – one that looked like a purse, but could also hold her supplies. She was currently using a special-made bag, but it wasn’t big enough to hold all of her supplies.

What she liked about it was that she could take her readings without removing the meter. So we wanted to include a zip-out portion of the bag so she could have all her supplies ready when she needed to take measurements.

We talked about what she wanted and I was going to build a tote until I stumbled onto the Lombard Street bag by Chris W Designs.

My client loved the look of that bag and selected some lovely, mint fabric.

The bag is similar to the Two Zip Hipster that I made. There are a lot of steps, but they are explained well.  The only modification I made was extending the zipper all the way down. I used two zippers thinking it might be easier and faster to unzip. (I’m not sure that was necessary.) The lining in the outside pocket is meant to be stretched a bit. However, that may not have been effective in my complete zip-down style.

I had a rough idea how we were going to lay out the supplies and I had all the dimensions of the supplies. But it was challenging without having those supplies in-house. So I made a mockup of all the elastic pieces and we had a fitting. I also added two pockets to the outside compartment.

I believe we achieved the desired result: a fun bag that is functional. (“Sew practical, sew pretty!”)