Bag making advice anyone?

Thanks heaps for your kind feedback about the Chocolate Drop Bag.  I will get to work on a PDF pattern for a design variant as soon as I get back from HK.  I'll also make the bag into a kit if I can produce it for a reasonable price.  I have decided that I am going to create lots more U-Handbag patterns and kits from now on.  Our kits and patterns will always be a very reasonable price because we are doing all of the putting it together and you aren't paying for a brand name.  :)

So this last week I was having a chat to a craft magazine editor and also a commissioning editor for a publishers wishing them both a Happy New Year.  They both said to me that what they were surprised and delighted that what they had heard on the crafty grape vine last Spring was coming true.  They heard that sewing was going to be huge in late 08 onwards and that global sales of sewing machines where going to go through the roof.  Well, I was delighted to hear that sewing was be the 'next big thing', but what with all of the credit crunchiness going on I wasn't so convinced about the huge increase in sewing machine sales... Yee of little faith!  It turns out that sales of sewing machines in the last quarter of 08 surpassed expectations of 4 fold up on the previous year to 6 - 10 fold depending on who is doing the reporting.  Great eh?

Hello Kitty sewing machine.  Really cute or rather sinister?  I can't decide...

So as Jo says there must be a loads of new sewing machine owners out there twiddling knobs, getting to grips with tension and basking in the delight of gaining entry into (IMHO) the coolest crafting club there is.

I was thinking a nice way for me to welcome newbie sewists and newbie (and not so newbie) bag makers into the fold would be to try and answer some of your bag making queries.  I will periodically return to this post to answer your bag making questions in various blog posts.  I'm not sure how it will work because I'm not sure what you are going to ask (or if any of you will ask anything!)  I might try and group answers rather than answer each one.  Anyway we'll see what happens; this might be a crazy idea and I might not be able answer any of your questions...eek!

So if you have a bag making question for me, comment on this post.  Please try to keep your questions quite general; this way the answer will hopefully be useful to lots of other readers.  Ta!

THIS POST WILL REMAIN ACTIVE.  PLEASE KEEP ADDING YOUR QUERIES, I MAY BE ABLE TO HELP :)