Week 7

Saturday snuck up on me this week. I was busy with other things and thought I didn't have time, but then a couple of 2-hour holes appeared in Friday's schedule and I took advantage of them to make my bag of the week. Good friends and good planning made this week's bag possible.

I'm calling it my Quack Bag. That's Quack. He's a character from Peep and the Big Wide World, which if you ask me is about the best little kids (science) show out there. Quack is a duck. He's blue. He wears a sailor hat. There's a beaver, named Beaver Boy. He has trouble remembering names. So he calls Quack "Blue Sailor" because of his sailor hat.

This bag is made of remnants from the local sail shop. And it's blue.

Pretty basic construction this week. Four short blue strips sewn together to make the two faces of the bag. One long very dark blue strip to go down the sides and across the bottom. One long skinny white strip to go around the inside of the top edge. Four giant grommets and four scraps to reinforce the holes. Four feet of thick rope for the handles.

I sewed the short strips together in pairs and topstitched the seam down because the material is so stiff that seam would never lie flat on its own. I sewed the long dark strip around 3 sides of the faces. I sewed the skinny strip inside the top edge. Then I sewed the ends of it together and topstitched along both edges. Next time I might put the white strip on the outside of the bag, as more of a nod to Quack's hat.

Who says a bag can't smile?

Next came holes for the grommets and hammering the grommets in place. Nothing like a good session with a hammer to work out your frustrations! I cut the rope to length and melted the ends to keep them tidy and help them get through the holes. Four knots and I was done.

No pictures of the process this week because I was too focused on just getting the thing made. At some point I need to decide if this is going to be a tutorial blog of a voyage of discovery blog. If you have any thoughts, post them below.