My First Bag

• March 14th, 2008 • • experiments, screen printing, sewing •

In November a friend of mine visited Japan and of course I asked her to pick up some cute webbing and ribbon I saw online at a shop she would be near. She came back with some really cute orange webbing with tulips on it and I immediately knew I wanted to do something special with it. But what? There it sat, waiting for a purpose.

A few weeks ago was our second anniversary. Michael thought I would like the traditional gifts better than the modern ones: last year I got a stack of awesome paper and this year I got a bunch of fabric. (Second year is cotton.) What to with my traditional pile of brown duck cloth? Why, attempt to make an awesome bag of course. A trip to IKEA for a cool-looking liner fabric and a few dozen more trips to the craft store for buckles, thread, zippers and rings: I got all my supplies! It took a couple of on-and-off weeks of work to puzzle out how to make my ideal bag. I loosely followed this handy guide I found on CRAFTzine (In addition to another helpful one on how to sew a two-sided strap.).

So here you have it, my first bag.

Overall it turned out pretty good, I’d say! I orignally intended to use it to replace my purse entirely, but it’s just too big for that. So, I made an accessory purse for day-to-day use when I don’t want to haul all my supplies around in a big bag. (Or when stores make me leave a big bag up front while shopping.) I re-used an old stencil for the front since I like it so much, the big weenie dog. The entire bag is padded with an old U-haul moving pad left-over from a move. I also put a piece of masonite in the bottom of the bag to add some stability after I finished sewing. The strap is double-sided with a pad (also made from U-haul padding) for added comfort.

3 Responses to ' My First Bag '

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to ' My First Bag '.

1. Tisha said,
   
   

   on June 13th, 2008 at 10:55 pm

   Hey, I was just wondering what store you got that awesome webbing from!

2. Olivia said,
   
   

   on June 13th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

   A friend bought it for me on a trip to Japan! It came from a store called “Tomato.”

3. Tisha said,
   
   

   on June 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm

   hmm, well since I’m not going to Japan anytime soon, I’m not sure that will help, but thanks!

Leave a reply