Circa Christmas Time anyways. I made a few of my Christmas gifts this year - three bags and a fleece shirt.
This is why that was all I has a chance to make:
This pattern is from the Fall 2011 Stitch magazine (Slouch Bag). There were a ton of steps in the pattern, and tons of layers (Holy crap, i felt like a spent 8 hours cutting out the shell and lining fabric, and muslin, headliner and stiff interfacing pieces) to work with. There was also a lot of top stitching required in the pattern.
The pattern also asked for silk douppioni for the thick trim on the bag lining. Fabricland sells it for $34 a metre so I found the perfect substitute in their home dec section which was $7 a metre. The lining once done though was about 2 inches longer than the shell, so I had to cut off some of the trim. It might have hurt a little doing that if it was silk douppioni. I find there are always minor glitches with Stitch patterns, whether the pattern pieces are off, or there are missing or weird instructions. I have actually made a few projects from Stitch magazine, so I don't mind them too much, I just need to keep an open mind when I am completing them. (I also made the fleece shirt from the same Stitch mag which didn't go as well, but I'll leave that for another post.)
It took a few days to put together but the end result is a pretty sweet looking bag with a surprising inside.
I love the strap details at the sides of the bag.
The clear vinyl was ironed onto the bottom piece for added protection.
My sewing machine was very testy while I was sewing this bag, although I can''t blame it now - I started out using the wrong size top stitch sewing needle for my thread. On top of that, the Teflon foot I bought to sew the vinyl bag strap was weirdly thick and when I was sewing over more than one layer the foot would slant up and the sewing needle would jam into the back of the foot opening. This happened a few times while I was trying to figure out if there was something wrong with my machine before I realized it was the foot causing the problem. It was a $30 Janome foot for a Janome machine - hopefully I can send them an email and get a refund for it...
I didn't want to ever make this bag again the day I finished it, but after I gave this to my sister from Christmas, I keep thinking about it, and just might make one for myself but with these changes:
*take out some of the inside thickness - it has about 4 layers of muslin, plus the headliner.
*make the bag strap a few inches longer and about a half inch narrower - my sisters one complaint is that the strap sometimes falls off her shoulder because it is pretty wide.
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| My sis modeling her bag |
If you have made this bag, or anything else from Stitch Mag, I would love to see it so please feel free to link to your blog or pics in the comments section
Looks like this post is getting a little lengthy so I will write about the fleece shirt and other 2 bags later.
Thanks for stopping by, and
Happy 2012 (February and beyond...)!!!
