Week 26 or The Case of the Sail and the Shirt

Is it a bag or just an impostor? Either way, it's what you're getting this week.

We're a big reading family. There's more than one book case for each family member, and they're all full. My husband used to travel with a back-breaking load of books no matter where he went or for how long. When e-readers came out, he hemmed and hawed, not being an early adopter, but he finally got one. When our older daughter, at 8 years old, wanted to read The Hunger Games, we got it on the Kindle and she was able to enlarge the font enough to enjoy and rip through the whole series. Since then, I don't think she's read a paper book. So we got her one of her own, used from a friend who was transitioning in the other direction. It came with a spiffy hard neon green case.

Dad, on the other hand, had a black canvas envelope clutch I made in about 5 minutes one morning as he was heading out the door and wanted something to protect the screen. I say "had" because nobody knows where it is now. For a week he's been carrying the e-reader around wrapped in a tea towel. So I rummaged through my supplies and made him a new one. A scrap of sail too small for much of a bag. The sleeve of one of his worn out button down shirts. Leftover quilt batting from the previous principal's retirement quilt. Last, but certainly not least, and most miraculous of all, a zipper that happened to be the right color and length, and not come from an old project and need work to use!

The stripes are a bit busy to read with, but the sail is so much sturdier and scratchier that I had to use it on the outside. Besides, the case isn't stiff, and there's nothing holding the e-reader in place, so nobody's going to be reading with it in the case.

For guidance on getting the zipper in correctly, as in useable and not with the pull stuck inside with the stuffing, I turned to this tutorial for a wallet that turns into a shopping bag. (That's a project for another week.) The most helpful hint there was to leave a gap to pull the end of the zipper out. The end isn't quite centered, but it's close enough that it closes properly and doesn't look funny. I had to make the lining in two pieces, with a seam down the middle so that it could be turned right-side-out after sewing the zipper in between the two layers. Helpful hint, discovered by accident: baste a bit of the center of that gap so it behaves like a complete piece of fabric instead of something with a big gash in the middle.





I'm still working on a bag/box/play surface for the Lego collection, but I haven't even started on the lid or the handles, so that will have to wait for another week. And this being Week 26, I'm half-way done!

Weeks 20 & 21 or More Shirt Bags

It's been a busy 2 weeks. We had a big birthday party last weekend, complete with homemade piñata and bean bag toss. Each of those took several hours of work. Not to mention the shopping, invitations, keeping track of everything and trying to talk the girls out of adding yet another complicated activity to the schedule. In the end, we did not have the multi-level jump pad set up, just a couple of little trampolines. Which the guests didn't seem to mind. Add in the drawing board / water balloon target Dad, and everyone's happy. The treasure hunt ended up being plastic coins and rings scattered on the grass by my kids, but again only a few of the older kids commented on how it wasn't much of a "hunt." This week I've been trying to recover, but a very cute school choral concert and plans for a popsicle stand have taken up a lot of time.

I did find a shirt half taken apart already, so I started with that. I gave  away my favorite shirt bag to a grocery store bagger, so I wanted to see if I could make another just as good. As before, I used the body for one bag and the sleeves for another. The body bag folds up for storage and closes with a cuff. I attached the cuff to the side with the button placket, so now it doesn't work for closing the top when it's in use, but it holds it closed better when it's rolled up. It was handy to be able to shut the bag, but I was tired of having them get untidy in storage. I'll let you know how annoying that ends up being. If it's really bad, I can just add a button to the other side and call it a day.

I decided not to add fabric to make the sleeve bag bigger. It was going to be a quick and dirty lunch-size bag, but I ran out of time to finish it in one sitting. So it sat for a day, along with the hem scraps, and inspiration struck. I trimmed the hem section to about 3" wide. I set the sewing machine for "stun" (aka increased thread tension and stitch length to maximums) and turned it into a ruffle. I was going to turn the top edge of the bag to the outside, but the sleeve placket then showed and looked bad. So I used the shiny white webbing to hide the raw edge and for the handles. I made a ton of the ticking stripe handles already, so you'll see them in future bags. 

As with most of the bags on this blog, the handle straps are tucked into the hem on the inside. That way there are no raw edges to deal with. The handles end up being stitched in twice, so they're quite sturdy. And if you have a key clip that's the right size, you can attach it there. It may not look as sturdy as a box with an X, but I have not run into any problems yet and it's a lot quicker to sew. 

Now off to make a chocolate cream pie with Oreo crust (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, the recipient said when asked if she'd prefer this to a graham cracker crust), attempt to catch my layout in trapeze class, get the girls from school, run the popsicle stand and take them and a friend for swimming and pizza before I collapse in an exhausted heap.

Weeks 3 & 4

I'm getting ahead of myself. Once again, I have taken one garment and made 2 bags. This week, it's a button-down shirt.

The first bag is a pure recycle, nothing added but thread. A model I've made before. I like to think it's getting better each time. Actually the first one was really quite good, the next two were way too big and now it's good again.

The body of the bag is made from the body of the shirt. The button placket has been sewn shut, but the chest pocket remains. I used some scraps to make handles.

The finishing touch, a stroke of genius if I do say so myself, is to use a cuff to make a dual function closure. You can roll up the bag and use the cuff to keep it small and tidy when not in use. Or you can use the cuff to keep the top closed and stuff from falling out when it's full. Like two baguettes.

The second bag has some sail fabric added. As I mentioned before, I picked up a pants-bag full of scraps from a local sail maker. The dark blue goes with the plaid, so I used one strip for the sides and bottom and another for a facing strip at the top.

The front and back of the bag are cut from the sleeves of the shirt. I've made bags from just sleeves, but they're always a bit too small to be really useful. (Apologies to those of you with kids in the Thomas phase.)

One handle comes from the collar and the other is made from another scrap. I kept the button & buttonhole on the collar and added one of each on the other side of the bag so it could be closed up a bit. This bag does not have a handy dandy folding mechanism, but I like it just the same.