January 1st craft. . .

Starting out small but strong!  I used a pattern I found online for a Japanese knot bag for my buddy AO. . . I'll modify the pattern for future bags, I think, but this was a good start:

Outside of the bag

 It was an interesting experiment for me - the design of the bag allows for a little peak of the interior fabric, so I wanted it to be interesting -- I chose two fabrics with some complimentary colors but they were very different. The outer fabric is a sort of peacock pattern and I loved the way it was mottled with a lot of black at the top.
The inner fabric is a very bright floral - it didn't have the yellow like the outside, but instead has a purple highlight in it.  They look quite nice together, I have to say.

I wasn't exactly happy with the pockets in the bag, though - they are very shallow and I doubt they'll provide much in the way of benefit.  Next time, I think I'll make the pocket as deep as the bag itself and only put a single divider in, making it a little bit bigger.  Perhaps big pockets on one side and smaller pockets on the other, I don't know.  Still, it was a nice little project that ate up a few hours of my day.  Next time, I imagine, I'll stretch it over a few days as well - hard to block out such a large amount of time for sewing!