sewing Archives - Page 10 of 42

Messenger Bag

And there was bag.

The main pocket has no additional pouches or pockets inside it, but there is a flat full-size pocket on either side opening to the outside. The flap, which covers nearly the entire front side when closed, has a secret zippered pocket that could hold pens or flash drives.

The width of this bag was determined by my laptop and its thickness by the width of the braided strap. The height may have been my laptop but was certainly influenced by whatever was necessary to have an entire fabric motif show on each outer pocket.

To make it, I lined the outside pockets and attached them flat to the sides. I constructed the flap pocket on one side of the flap by first adding a strip of fabric to each end of the zipper to extend it the width of the flap. Then I sandwiched the zipper tape between pieces of lining and outer fabric. The lining is stitched away from the zipper through the seam allowances on both sides, and then the upper piece folds down across the zipper. The bottom pocket seam is above the bottom flap seam, largely because I was working with stash fabric for the lining and that was as big as it got, but they share side seams.

I used interfacing on the outer pockets but nowhere else. This was partly because the construction of this bag was so spread out that I’d forgotten by the time I got to the main lining, but partly because I didn’t want the bag to get too heavy.

The strap is machine stitched at the top and bottom of each side and hand-stitched in between to stay nice and smooth. If I’d known in advance how long the strap needed to be I would have constructed the bag from the bottom up, but I did the bottom last, which was slow and awkward. Oh well! It turned out fine. I added the flap before I added the bottom because I couldn’t decide what order things should go in or whether I should machine-stitch the straps all the way down, and I needed to make sure I could fold the top edge down if so. That made finishing it up feel super fast – all that laborious sewing the bottom and hand-stitching the straps, and then boom, just slip the lining in, sew around the top, and done!

Or not done, actually, because as soon as I put my laptop in the strap stretched way out to the point of being uncomfortable. I tried an idea I’d had a while ago: machine-sewing along the center of each strip of twill tape that wasn’t decorated with embroidery floss. I wished the whole time that I’d done it before making the bag because it was quite awkward. AND it didn’t even work. I had to back the strap with bag fabric to take the weight, and attach it less-than-perfectly where the straps meet the bag itself. At first I really hated how the strap came out, but now that I’m used to it, I think it’s all right.

At any rate, now I have a fairly lightweight and pleasingly comfortable cross-body laptop bag that I can use to walk or bike to meetings all summer long.

Plannerama

I have a crafty new planner. Previously, I’d gotten a hardbound planner that had 2-page months between sets of 2-page weeks. However, it was too large for my purse, and I found myself failing to consult it on a very regular basis. When I get busy I just want to have a piece of paper lying out with my to do list. It occurred to me I might be able to have my cake and eat it too with a planner in a mini binder.

That cover is two sheets of pearly scrapbook paper cut to size, with the diecuts in the top layer made with my Cricut machine. You can see a strip of elastic – my previous pen holder was a pocket that hung onto the front of the planner with two elastic loops. It’s been a while since I switched to the binder and I only just finished my new pen holder. Meanwhile I got used to taking out the current planner page and sliding it under the elastic on the outside of the binder, so when I replaced the pocket I turned one of its elastics into a separate loop.

Here’s the new pouch! It’s basically two flat pieces, each double-sided, one with a zipper and the other with a layer of heavy interfacing and some ribbon loops. It didn’t come out well enough to be worth sharing a pattern for, but I’m happy with it. The striped dividers are more scrapbook paper, cut to 8.5″x5.75″ so they stick out a bit.

And finally, here’s a highlights reel of my binder’s contents, so I can share the sources of my printables.

year on 2 pages (Scattered Squirrel)
One Little Word focus matrix (The Project Girl)
monthly calendars: one month per page (Scattered Squirrel)
weekly calendars: week on two facing pages (Scattered Squirrel)
four sheets of address book (About.com)

Oh, and you may be thinking, “if her previous planner didn’t fit in her purse, there’s no way this one does!” You’re right. I got a little staple-bound two-year monthly planner to use for that. It is full of silly animal pictures.

A flatiron in the sewing room?

I’m conducting some in-home sewing lessons for a ten-year-old right now, and realized after the first lesson that we hadn’t made any arrangements for ironing. We’re making a dress so ironing is not optional, but there’s not a ton of space – and there is a large and boisterous dog wandering about (similar to the one pictured). I vaguely recall reading a tip to use a flatiron to straighten ribbon, and I happen to own a flatiron that I bought before abandoning 90% of hair equipment and products (I’m down to shampoo, conditioner, a hair brush, and occasionally a hair dryer). I thought we could use that to at least press the seams open close to the edges of the fabric, where they will intersect other seams, and then they could do a full press all at once at the end.

I tested it out on bias tape, and set to 15 (its max is 25) it did a decent job. You have to be careful not to stretch the bias tape; pushing your iron along fabric can stretch it (though moreso if steam is involved), so pulling something through a pair of heated plates would definitely do so. Turning it up to 20 might have made it a quicker job, of course, but we’re working with a satiny material so trying lower temperatures was a priority. I’ll probably set it to 10 and test it on scrap dress material at the next lesson.

Naturally the flatiron has to be transported and I don’t want to have to worry about its temperature when doing so. That meant an insulated carrying case of some kind. Another vague recollection came to me, of using a potholder or two to make a flatiron sleeve for travel. I didn’t have any potholders to sacrifice to the cause, but I did have a lot of leftover 100% cotton flannel and some random pieces of the silvery insulated fabric used to make ironing board covers. I did some measuring and cut a bunch of pieces.

The larger pieces are 10.5″x3.5″ and the smaller ones are 7.5″x3.5″. The silver fabric wasn’t large enough to make 10.5″ so it’s somewhere between 8″ and 9″, but that’s still way longer than the hot portion of the flatiron. I laid them out with the silver fabric in the middle, silver side in, and stitched the layers together at 1/4″. I also zigzagged the edge, but not very tightly. The short side got bias tape on its top edge, and then I zigzagged the two sides together. Bias tape all the way around the outside and it was done.

The flatiron fits inside it perfectly. I am quite pleased.

So what else is in my teaching bag? Seam ripper, seam gauge, two sizes of scissors, some rectangles of fabric for stitch practice, and painter’s tape. The sewing machine we’re using has eighth-inch marks, but they’re not labeled. I plan to run a length of tape along the 5/8″ mark to make it stand out, and my business partner suggested painter’s tape instead of the masking tape I was thinking of. Perfect!