I’m singing “it’s Friday night and I ain’t got no social life, I think I’m gonna go and make a bag”
I had been looking around the net for something pretty easy bag tutorial and at the same time didn’t require more than a meter of fabric. Why? This is because I’m that nice mixture of tight and skint because of this I have an extra tight fabric budget. So I only buy fabric in up to half meters unless I’m in Ikea. (One day I’ll write a post about quilting on the cheap)
So I found this very nice looking retro messenger bag at the Stitching Scientist.
For a bag novice like me it’s like a mine field the only other bag I had ever made was from the book Meet me at Mikes and it had turned out more like , thus forever being know as Skirt Bag. So this tutorial was pretty straight forward.
In some parts I cheated and in other parts I couldn’t. Such as I spent ages looking for an alternative to fleece interfacing because it is really expensive (£8.65 a meter, and this didn’t fit into my tight remit) But there was no alternative after reading way too many blogs about the stuff I just bit the bullet and bought a meter from my lovely local sewing shop. It gives it a soft quilty feel, I was tempted to use some wadding but I needed to iron it in. Just dont iron on the wrong side (the stick side) it was hard to get the glue off my iron and it’s still not the way it was.
I needed to cheat elsewhere. The tutorial did ask for a meter of the backing fabric, luckily I already had half a meter of the blue herringbone and I had seen that Plush Addict had it in a sale so I picked up another half a meter. I wouldn’t have needed it if I had not messed up one of the side panels and cut it in the wrong direction, so that was wasted on this project at least.
I guess the meter is to use for the lining, instead of using the expensive stuff I used the awesome Ikea £3 a meter stuff and it worked just as well.
The main difference was that in the strap I used the fleece interface instead of normal interfacing and it was a nice touch, it gives that bit of extra comfort when your using it for grocery shopping it wont dig in. But I am carefull so far not to overload it…c’mon I’m not that confident in my sewing skills. Also when your finishing off with the top stitch, make sure the hole is in the back part, I’m dumb I put mine in the front. I also finished it with top stitching about a quarter-inch around the top, It just felt like it needed it.
It’s easy to make I just need to work out how to put a zip in it the next time I make one. That awesome front fabric is Alexander Henry-Lost at Sea. (I haven’t seen it in the UK as yet I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, it’s very beautiful I love it)
Yo DJ spin that wheel…..
I’ve not listened to too much new stuff this week, much of the same stuff as last week. I’ve put on to the music list Perfumed genius who reminds me of Mick Ronson, a modern-day glam song. I’ve also had Brian Eno playing , his early albums anyway I do like how he can move between pop and atmospheric instrumentals on the same album. I’ve included two amazing pop tracks.
Work had been busy this week by Tuesday I was trying all sorts of music to get me through to 5.
Ryan Adams worked for a bit, I thought about maybe War on Drugs or Jack White but it was so busy and my brain decided that it was sick of thinking it needed something big, bigger than Billy Ocean big (were talking big)., but that just wasn’t cutting it.
I’m going to destroy my reputation but I have mentioned them before so no big surprise. On went Roxette best of, that did the trick. Before I knew it, it was 5 I went home with a spring in my step and then put some more of them on while I cut fabric for the Halloween quilt. So there is it my escape from boring tasks music is Roxette, Im not embarrassed. I’m going to share that my mum took me to see them back in 1990 or something like that, it was my first proper buy a ticket not free in the park arena show. They were ok to what I can remeber, not much of a set.
After a dose of that it did make me want to listen to a bit of Heart and a bit of Nelson strangely enough.
the crafty mastermind 