Train bag (a pain in my caboose)

I stayed in last night in an attempt to get a Christmas gift for my nephew done.  The back story is here, but the abridged version is the boy has enough toy trains to fill a tub. 

or swimming pool. 

or any other arbitrary 'large' object. 

He brings them with him everywhere, and they inevetably end up under someone's feet. 

Bad news for the trains, and bad news for the feet.

Since we are gifitng on a budget this year - I pulled out my stash of train fabric and went to work.

I got about 1/2 way done (hopefully that was the hard half since it involved a zipper, some swear words and a seem ripper.)

My brain fizzled out around 10:00pm .

I had to walk away and complete some flickr/blog therapy at about 10:30pm.

Today is a new day, however. 

I've had my coffee and ready for the final face off with Thomas and Friends...

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Edit: 12/17/11 6:00PM  

I win ... I WIN!!

I am happy to say it's all done!

..and it's my first successful zipper install!  

The artsy fartsy shot of the zipper.

Just don't look too close - it's a bit, special.

Fabric: Assorted Thomas the Tank Character Fabric
Pattern: Tutorial by Anna from Noodleheads