M-I-C-K-E-Y…

Yay!  My new purse for our Disney World trip over President’s day weekend is now complete!

I used the messenger bag tutorials on Craftster.com, the same ones as the Glitter Glue Princess’s school bag.

I learned a few things too -

1. When making the bag insert in the middle, make sure you put the pockets on the OUTSIDE of the insert.  This is easy to tell, because the zipper pulls should be there.  (insert headsmack here)
2. NEVER let a fabric store sales person tell you that peltex is the very best option for making purses, and believe her.  I could barely pull this thing through the seam to flip it – peltex is good, but it is much too thick for this.  Oh yeah, I had to add the velcro to hold down the flap due to the peltex.  Otherwise, it just pops right 0pen again.
3. The easiest way to make a key fob in your purse is to use a caribiner hook.

Next, I’m making a pad for the strap so I don’t have problems with friction on my shoulder.  And, after that, glitter glue princess and I are getting all Martha on you and making heart scarves!

The bag that tested my geometry skills…SQUARED!

Do you remember this fabric I dyed last month?

Glitter Glue Princess requested that this fabric be made into her school bag.  She wanted a messenger bag, but from the fabric design and the constraint of size, I was limited in what I could make – I preferred to have the tiedye completely wrap around the entire bag, rather than piece the tiedye and end up with excess busy activity on the bag – I *really* do think the fabric is busy enough, don’t you?    All of the patterns I had were pieced, so I went questing over the web for an appropriate design.  Looking through Craftster, I found this.  It was perfect.

I found a purse zipper (2 zips on a single closed tape), and Glitter Glue Princess had a cute! zip pull that we added.  I made a pocket that is darted at the bottom to hold her MP3 player, as well as a secret pocket inside the pocket to hold money and items she didn’t want the world to see.  We used a quick release snap for the strap, as adjustable fittings were only available in 1″ size.

Here is the finished result…

The bag that tested my geometry skills…

I found this lovely piece of Alexander Henry “maxfield” and knew it was just dying to be made into a round knitting bag.

Firstly, look at the repeat in this pattern:

The repeat is HUGE!!!!! Of course I didn’t buy enough either, and was left with barely enough scraps.

Here is my finished project – a bucket bag of my own design, after I saw a womans bag of similar design at a restaurant one day, and drew it out in my palm pilot:

And this is the best part of the bag, which will most likely get seen by noone but me:

So exciting!

Well, I’ve finally gone and done it. I decided to open up an etsy shop and sell dyed fabrics/bags/shirts. I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer!

http://dyeabolical.etsy.com

See the lovely header? I did it all by myself (I am soooo proud!), and it was quite a challenge, as paint shop pro doesn’t play well with vista on my computer, and kept crashing when I wanted to add the text. I really need to get a different program…. I used one of my favorite shirts for the background.

Of course, it is not populated. I haven’t even had a chance to get out and dye yet. I will definitely post when it comes up and show you some of the lovelies I’m working on for it. Hopefully in the next 2-3 weeks, I’ll have some wonderful goodies to show you all… I’m currently in the process of sewing up a slew of fabric shopping bags for the first dye round. Also bought a bunch of 60″ white kona cotton to dye as yardage and sell.

I also joined the Mad Scientist team on etsy, where we make items with a science twist for challenges, etc. This is going to be fun!

Sewing, sewing, and more sewing

The sewing studio has been humming a bit lately, now that we have conquered a few after school activities.

Glitter Glue Princess sewed a lovely bag from some double faced fabric…

I made her up a fleece shrug of her own, since she kept stealing mine… I made this in an XS womans size, considering that she will grow into it. I left the sleeves longer for the same reason…

Umm, yes the cat is really, really angry…

Glitter Glue Princess and I share a nintendo and needed a nice Girly case for it – the ones at the store are so uninspiring… You either get pink or something very boyish. A note to manufacturers – putting a case in pink is not enough – BOR-ING. What about us girls who are not the pinkish sort? Hmmm?

I saw this little number on Craftster and tried to make my own version… I plotted it out on graph paper one night and by the next night had this:

For a bit of perspective on its size, keep in mind that it is sitting on a 1″ grid. It looks like a child’s purse when carried around, which is fine for the Glitter Glue Princess, but not so much for me.

I don’t think the pattern is refined enough to share with anyone as a tutorial yet – I’m thinking about making the card section a separate zippered compartment on the back. More on this later.

As the ground begins to warm, I’m clamoring at the bit to get out and do some tie dye. I… Can’t… Wait!

My First Tutorial – Fabric Shopping Bag

Here are the instructions for making your shopping bags from an existing plastic bag as a pattern. As I mentioned before, I liked the shape of the container store bag for its height and thickness of making the pattern, but any bag will do… This one worked particularly well, as it fit nicely on a 45″ piece of fabric. It was nearly exact, and used a bit less than 3/4 yard remnants.

Cut the bottom seam and handle seams open on your bag, removing the part where the bag is fused. Slit the bag down one side inside the crease. Trace the bag with seam allowances – I used 5/8″ because of the french seaming and double sewing in the handles.

Cut your bag out. You will need both a lining and an exterior. For this example, I’m using the rainbow fabric for the outside and plain blue dye for the inside – this will keep things clear (I hope!).

First, sew your side seams.

Then for the curved part connecting the handles.

Trim them nicely, turn right side out and press.

You will now have a tube with 4 “legs”.

Now, this step is not necessary, but it helps me from ending up with a jumbled mess. Find your handle portions by looking for the narrow curved connector. You will sew together the two legs of the narrow connector (I had to tear out the seams of at least one bag before I had this epiphany). Take the two legs and sew them together on the inside at the edge – doesn’t matter if you pick inside or outside fabric – this is just a sewn tack for when you flip the bag. Repeat on the other set of legs.

Now for the tricky bit. We will now flip the bag so that the right sides of the fabric are together again, like when we were sewing the legs. You will pull the legs through too.

Now, where you tacked the handles together will show up as a round tube.

You are going to sew around the tube, as demonstrated here.

I remember this was always called “sewing around the teacup”, but I can’t remember where I learned that. I sew at 3/8″ and 5/8″, then serge the edge.

Your handle seam will be nice and professional looking when you put the bag back to wrong sides together. Press.

Edge stitch the handles at this point, about 1/4″ from edge.

You should then fold the handles, so that the side will crease, the outside edge being folded underneath. Stitch in the ditch at the top seam to hold them together.

Using your folded handle as a guide, crease the bag portion with a gusset on both sides and press. Sew the bottom of the bag from the outside as shown below at a small seam allowance, appr. 1/4″.

Trim the excess, and flip it to the inside, taking care to keep the gusset folds straight.

Sew again at a deeper seam allowance, appr. 3/8″ in a french seam. Flip your bag back to the outside, and your done!

Initial tests of this bag show that they hold well more than the standard paper grocery bag, about 50% more, most likely due to the size of the original bag used as the template.