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04 September 2007

Pretty Easy Bags

Well, I've now finished the first of my bags and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I had some fabric left over from some other projects, so I grabbed that & started playing. Looks like it'd take 1/3 to 1/2 yard of 45", depending on if you do a pocket or not and how big your bag is. I did just a standard size bag.



I loaded it up with some refried beans and pizza sauce from my cupboard and it looks like it's going to do the job quite neatly. In addition, it should hold books nicely when we go to the library. If I ever catch up with my fines. I swear, sometimes I wonder why I don't just go to the bookstore instead!



Anyway, my bottom didn't turn out quite the same as the pattern's, and I haven't exactly figured out why yet. I'm going to try some things a little differently on the next bag because this one doesn't close up very nicely. The bottom seam is just a little weird. Getting the gusset to do its magic & also be a french seam is going to take a little practice.



Also, my pocket is just a little bit big, so I cut down the pattern that I made, and the next one will be nearly square. Because the fabric's got a right side & a wrong side, the pocket looks inside out when it's folded up. But I think that I'm going to do it the same next time: I'd prefer an inside-out look folded in my purse, rather than it being obvious when I'm using it. But I think that if you did the pocket in a solid color it wouldn't be so obvious. And of course you could pick fabric that is patterned but not obvious about its right side/wrong side. But this was stuff that I had leftover from some project. I think it must be some project I forgot to do because there's a lot of the stuff, and I don't think I've ever made anything out of it before.

Altogether, including figuring out the directions and using a towel on the kitchen counter to avoid setting up my ironing board so the Monkey doesn't get a hot iron on his head, it probably took less than 2 hours to do, but I did it in 3 settings, so I'm not positive exactly how long it was. Not too bad.

3 comments:

Keeley said...

WOW! Cool! You're a genius! What a great seamstress you are. Your bag looks really good.

Unknown said...

Okay, I didn't understand anything you said, but I thought the bag looked great. And anything that can double as book bag? Oh yeah, I'm all over that!

By the way, I posted this on my blog today: "Okay, I'll admit it. Anne Bradshaw over at Not Entirely British did a really good thing and I am shamelessly borrowing from her idea of spotlighting the most amazing youth in the world. I think it is incredible what she has done and the youth that are the finalists in her contest are truly amazing. If you haven't gone to her blog yet, read about them and vote, you're going to want to do that as soon as you're done reading mine, submitting a nomination and generally recognizing that I'm the greatest blogger to ever walk the earth . . . all right, all right, you don't have to do that last part. As long as it exists in my mind I'm okay with that.

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Ritsumei said...

I'm glad you ladies like it! I just finished the 2nd one, and I got the bottom to be flat, and the pocket is a better size, so I think that we'll be going with the minor changes I made. I'm thinking that 4 to 6 of the m will really cut down on the number of plastic bags cluttering up my place. I just hate the bag of bags look on top of my fridge! (And it's a nice plus, environmentally speaking, that there will be just a few less bags used.)

But of course, just when I was finished with piano lessons and going to go to the library to take care of those fines, the Monkey fell asleep. So we'll be paying for one more day of books. By the time he wakes up it'll be too late to do it today. Bummer.

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