Exploring Creativity, One Project at a Time

For some reason, this spring and summer somehow became my time of buying bag kits. I look back on this box full of kits sitting by my feet whenever I’m sitting at my Juki, and wonder what I was thinking. What appealed to me about these Sallie Tomato kits that were promoted in the weekly emails from the designer?

I love choosing fabrics for bags, sorting through my stash of bag hardware to choose the metal color that I think will best complement the fabrics, and relishing that entire design process. Why did I think I wanted to choose another person’s options? It’s not that the kits were cheap (i.e. inexpensive). They weren’t. But they were on sale. And everything was included—the hardware, the zipper, the exterior fabric, the lining, and the pattern.

It’s not that the pattern cutting was already done for me. That’s the most tedious part of sewing—cutting out the pattern and fusing the interfacing.

So here I am, begrudgingly making a bag that I really didn’t want to make and that I certainly don’t need, when I’ve got a stack of bags that I owe to my cousin, and when I’d rather be whipping up a sundress to wear on a cruise that’s headed north as the weather turns cooler. (You see the wisdom in that desire, don’t you? she asked, ironically)

Sometimes I astonish myself with my gullibility. Just say no! Say “no” to emails encouraging me to buy something just because it’s on sale.

Yesterday’s make, as I wait for this damned Covid virus to leave my body, was a “Carry Along” wristlet bag. This is a nice little pattern, especially if you’re new to bag making and want a good place to start. The kit includes the Carry Along pattern with three sizes of bag; Sallie Tomato cork fabric, which is soft and sews like buttah; a coordinating piece of 100% cotton lining; a zipper cut to the size you need for the Medium bag; a “Handmade” label for the outside of the bag; and 1″ key fob hardware for the wrist strap.

The finished size Medium bag measures 8″ wide and 7″ high. Size Small measures 4″ wide and 3″ high; size Large is 12″ wide and 10″ high. I believe, after finishing the Medium, that I would have enough cork to make a Small, so long as I can scrounge up some coordinating lining fabric and a suitable zipper. It’s the cork that’s the most expensive component.

Was this an easy sew? Yes. Will I make it again? Probably not. There are so many bag patterns in my repertoire.

And yet, if I’m looking for a cute not-too-expensive make to use up some of my stash of vinyls, it would be a good item to have on hand for a maker’s market. Maybe I’ll do that in the spare 15-minutes-a-day I’m going to be reduced to once YSU classes start up again in a week and I’m spending all my days on a piano bench.

I love learning new things. The reason I write my blog posts in so much detail, and carefully tell you every mistake I made, is so you might learn from my errors and be inspired to try using one of the bag patterns I use.

Back in April or May, I was on the Klum House site, looking for something or other, and saw that Ellie Lum, the designer behind the label, was offering an Intermediate Bag Making class. It was more than I usually spend on an impulse purchase, but I wanted to learn what Ellie had to offer. So I paid my money and chose the colors I wanted for the three bags I would learn to make. Then I noted the class start date and forgot about it.

A few of weeks later, about the time I was up to my ears in senior showcase performances, and church sub gigs, and preparing for my accompanees’ juries, the box of class materials arrived. I set it in my sewing room and forgot about that, too.

Juries came and went, the death of a dear friend threw me off-course for a week or so, the trip to Amarillo and Dallas to see my two sons came and went, and suddenly I realized I had missed the first Zoom meeting of the class—without even opening the box of materials. Without even being sure where I had stashed the box!

Sheesh! Last year was one tough year. But I’m very grateful to have been able to carve out time in the summer to learn about sewing with waterproof waxed canvas, leather strapping, and all the different connectors Ellie Lum has included in her bag design.

I won’t go into all the details of my boo-boos on these bags. I may add them later, but for right now, I just want to get these pictures out for you to see. I’m very proud of them.

The first bag was the Oberlin. It could be used as a purse or a tote bag.
The true colors are gray and black. It has a zipper closure and a magnetic snap, canvas lining, an interior hanging zippered pocket, and front and back exterior pockets that span the width of the bag, but are each divided into two pockets.

Several of the class students had trouble with the final stitching of the exterior and lining pieces. In my kit, I felt the exteriors and interiors weren’t exactly the same size, and those differences led to unwanted tucks in the stitching. I want to make the bag again soon, before I forget anything I learned, and see if I can get a smooth final stitching.

The second bag was the Maywood Tote/Pack. It can be carried as a tote bag, or pull up on the cleverly designed leather strap, and wear it as a backpack. Beyond cool!

I chose Moss and Black for the colors of the bag and here’s where the Maywood and I ended up: 💚.

I have never, ever, in my entire life, loved a bag the way that I love this bag!!! The first Maywood photo at the top of the post is the front of the back. The photo with this paragraph is the presto-change-o backpack. Cool, huh?!

“Pockets?”, you ask. We’ve got pockets! The front of the bag has a slip pocket that spans the exterior (the black rectangle in the first photo). That pocket has a magnetic snap that holds it closed. And the interior has another slip pocket that goes from the base of the bag to about two inches from the top, and from side to side.

It easily carries everything this collaborative pianist schleps to work with her every day. For example: iPad holding all my music (currently about 1800 pieces of music, plus three musical theatre scores); my page turn pedal; special reading glasses enabling me to see the mid-range of the piano music stand; my iPhone; sometimes my MacBook Air; sometimes a scarf or jacket; Apple Pencil and case; pencil and pen and highlighter; bottle of water; N95 mask; and small crossbody bag holding my ID, credit card, Kleenex pack, proof of vaccination. And it all fits easily into the bag and isn’t outrageously heavy!

Today I took carried it to a voice lesson I was playing with my favorite voice professor/neighbor/friend who had just returned from several weeks of vacation. When I walked into her studio after she had warmed-up the student, she stopped what she was doing to look at the bag, sling it over her shoulder, and ask me if I’d make one for her. 😂🤣 That’s how good this sweet bag is.

So that’s two of the bags in the Intermediate Bag Making class. The third is the Naito Bucket Bag. I finished it the day before yesterday, quickly took photos, and posted it to a couple of social media sites. But I haven’t carried it. But I sense it may become second only to the Maywood.

The color of the exterior waxed canvas is gray. The interior is a natural canvas. I love using light colored linings—you can find your contents much more easily with a light-colored lining. 👍

One of the best features of the construction of this bag is one of the great tricks of sewing. That’s knowing how to sew a curved edge to a straight edge. Honestly, I think this is the easiest such maneuver I’ve ever done! And I did it twice, perfectly. The bucket bottom of the exterior and the bucket bottom of the lining both require this trick. I didn’t cry. I didn’t curse. I didn’t even pull out my seam ripper! That success makes me want to construct more and more of these bags!

The other success on this bag arose out of failure in the Maywood. It was absolutely a user error, not an error in cutting at the studio or in design or documentation of the pattern.

Both arose out of the magnetic snap rivets that secure the Maywood exterior slip pocket and the Naito top hem that enables the user to make that cool fold in the top of the bag when you pull up the strap.

There’s an “innie” and an “outie” anvil that correspond to the outie and innie snap heads. If you don’t use these anvils and your hard setting surface and your mallet when setting those snaps, they don’t set completely and the cap of the snap will fall off. Trust me, I know. It happened to me. I had to use my seam ripper and scratch my head to figure out how to cover up that error.

But I did figure it out. And you can bet I patted myself on the back. 😊

So if you want to increase your skill set and have fun while doing so, go check out Ellie Lum’s current class offerings, and see if there isn’t a bag that appeals to you. I think you’ll be happy you did.

This weekend we’re attending a Bonnie Raitt concert. We bought the tickets back in mid-February. I am not familiar with much of her work. Jas, however, knew when he saw her name on the concert list for this summer that she was on Rolling Stone Magazine’s “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” and “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” He loves guitar music and tried for about the past eight years to learn to play the instrument. But when he started trying to learn to read music, he put his guitar in its case and it hasn’t seen the light of day since that time.

The last year I spent time at Interlochen was 2019, when I was one of the collaborative pianists in the dance division for the first three-week session. I noticed the sign that stated all concertgoers were prohibited from bringing bags into Kresge Auditorium. However, they could bring see-through vinyl bags or Ziploc® or similar bags to carry their phone, wallet, and other necessary items into the venue. (Did you notice the graphics on the lower right portion of the ticket photo? Those represent things you can/can’t bring into the venue.)

Sara Lawson, of Sew Sweetness Patterns, one of my favorite bag designers, released a bag to be made of clear vinyl, and I made two of them last year—one for my friend who works in HR at Interlochen Arts Camp, and one for my daughter-in-law, who teaches High School Contemporary Dance at Interlochen Arts Camp. Both those bags are shown in my post, “How Time Disappears During A Pandemic.”

That bag, the Pinto Stadium Bag, is not easy to make—in my opinion—because of the curved corners on the bag. The bag has a gusset around the sides to provide depth in the bag, increasing what you can easily carry in it. The gusset is rectangular, and sewing a curved edge next to a straight edge requires a lot of fidgeting with the edges.

As I was thinking about wanting to make a bag to carry to the concert, I kept thinking about those accursed curves. (Carry a Ziploc bag for my purse contents? Seriously? You must not know me very well!) I remembered that I had bought a new pattern a couple of years ago, printed it off, and tucked it in a holding place in my sewing room. That pattern was the Hello Pouches pattern from Knot + Thread Design. I’ve admired this bag since I first saw the pattern, but have never had a reason to make it. Well, this week meant a long-awaited concert was my reason.

I have four varieties of vinyl for use with these bags. Vinyl by the yard comes in varying thicknesses, from 4 gauge (0.004 inches thick) to 80 gauge (about 0.08 inches thick). I believe mine is all 12 gauge, as recommended by Sara Lawson in the Pinto pattern. I have the normal clear vinyl, along with a see-through yellow, pinkish-red, and blue. For my “Bonnie Bag”, I chose clear.

I then dug through my fabric stash to see what I could find. Very long ago, in March, 2020, when all hell broke loose worldwide, I bought some fabric to make a tote bag for my sister’s grand-daughter-in-law, whom I’ve come to adore. I was making a bag for her. She wanted a black bag as she usually wears black. (Who does that sound like?) And she wanted a lining fabric that would demonstrate her support for her LGBTQ child and friends. For the rainbow fabric, I selected “Rainbow Graffiti Stripe” from the Buzzin’ Around collection by Kim Schaefer for Andover Fabrics. I had just enough to act as the accent fabric for this bag.

I chose the size Medium. But I wanted to have the greater part of the sides made out of the clear vinyl, rather than the fabric. As designed, the fabric base, once the corners are boxed, is about ½” to 1″ less than the height of the top (vinyl) piece. I wanted the bottom piece to be much shorter than the vinyl piece, so the ushers who cleared us into the venue could clearly see that I was not carrying any contraband into the concert. My finished bag has about 1½” of fabric and about 4″ of vinyl, topped by just over ¼” of top binding and the zipper. The zipper installation is one of those cool installations where you use half a zipper and one pull. I don’t understand why this works, but I’ve done several of these, and know it does work.

I wanted a wrist strap for this bag so I didn’t have to carry it into the venue and balance it on my lap all evening. I opened the Sew Sweetness Metro Double Zip Pouch pattern on my iPad and copied the instructions for the wristlet strap. I sewed the D-ring onto the bag by hand (i.e. with a needle and thread), and whipped up the wristlet strap out of a deep violet fabric from my stash.

I am so incredibly happy with this bag, I can hardly stand myself. If you don’t know this about me, I have two beloved grandchildren, ages 21 (in four weeks) and 19, who are transgender. I have a number of students I accompany who are LGBTQ. I frequently play for local musical theatre shows, and many of those actors are LGBTQ. I love all of my students, regardless of the flag they fly or how they present or whom they love.Carrying this bag will advertise—to anyone who needs the support—that I am an ally. If they need someone to talk to, there I am, proud to be supportive of their lives.

And I’m proud of having figured out how to hack the “Hello Pouches” pattern to meet my specific needs. Yay, Me! 😉

My partner of twelve years had another birthday last Thursday. On Monday, I remembered I had thought, six months ago, that I wanted to make him a small backpack/sling bag for future travel experiences. I had a bag in my head that I had seen somewhere as I cruised through the websites or Facebook pages of the various independent bag designers whose patterns I love. I checked all the pages I could think of, but couldn’t find that bag that had formed in my imagination. I posted on the “PDF Love of Bags” Facebook group asking for help identifying the sling bag I was envisioning. Those comments pointed me to the Noodlehead Sandhill Sling.

The first picture is the truest representation of the color. The vinyl is a deep green-gray. The first zipper I tested with it was an olive green, which would have been fine. But when I found the lining fabric in green, navy, and gray triangle confetti on cream, I opted for navy zippers and webbing.

I watched the Sew Creative “Video tutorial on the Sandhill Sling Bag By Noodlehead” on YouTube and added two zippered pockets to the interior. The pocket I placed above the elasticized-top slip pocket is only about 3″ deep. It’s perfect to drop your keys or change or other small items you want to find easily into. The exterior closure, the exterior pocket, and the front interior pocket all have blue zippers. I gave the key pocket a spring green zipper to jog the recipient’s memory when he reaches in to grab his keys.

The other tip I picked up from the Sew Creative video was to put two D-rings on the bottom, one on either corner. This way, if you have a habit of just slinging the bag over your shoulder and tucking it under your arm, you can clip the strap to whichever side makes it more comfortable for you.

The finished bag dimensions are 7” wide by 3” deep, 11” tall. If a user has very large hands, they might have trouble reaching into the pockets to retrieve the contents. For that person, you might want to make the exterior pocket with the flap closure and no zipper. If you really want the exterior zippered pocket, then you could skip the zipper cover. The interior pocket zippers are only about 6″ wide, therefore snug. But my piano hands fit nicely inside to grab my imaginary contents. The interior pockets are absolutely not necessary or required. This is the perfect bag to just carry a couple small bottles of water and a foldup map for a two-hour hike or a three-hour 🛥️ tour. 😉

I used Dritz 1½” polyester (feels like cotton) webbing for the strap. My local JoAnn’s doesn’t carry the navy in 1½”, so I ordered it from Amazon and had it the next day.
[Note to self: Noodlehead carries the webbing in 1½” and 1″ widths. Plan ahead.]

When the bag was introduced, the designer, Anna, sponsored a sewalong. There are YouTube videos on the Noodlehead Sewing Patterns channel. They’ll get you through any tough spots.

One feature Anna added in the sewalong video was a carry strap at the top. She cut it to 9″ and sewed at the top of the bag. I used the leftover 1½” strapping for mine, but next time I will use her recommended 1″ wide strapping. It’s easier to grab. But I think this carry strap is a great thing to have on this bag. I’m glad I added it.

Other details I added: I bought some zippers in Bali four years ago that had cool dangles from the pulls. They’re very short zippers, maybe 5″, and I rarely find use for them, so I just used a thin screwdriver blade to open up the top of the pull and slip off the cute little metal ball dangle. I used a split ring to connect it to the pull of the exterior pocket zipper. My top exterior zipper is a regular YKK zipper with long pulls, so I didn’t add anything to that. The front interior zipper has a gunmetal “Handmade” dangle hanging from it, and for the key pocket, I found a strip of ⅛” wide navy ribbon which I threaded through the pull for ease in opening the zipper. And, of course, my Jananza label is fused to the elasticized-top interior slip pocket. These little details always bring me joy. Anna adds waxed cord zipper pulls to the main zipper. She carries the cord in several colors on her website.

All the hardware on the bag is gunmetal, as I felt that went well with the darkness of the vinyl.

Do I love this bag? Yes! Would I make it again? Yes, although probably not with vinyl. I would, however, make it out of waxed canvas or cotton for the durability, or out of a favorite quilting cotton for the softness and variety of fun fabrics.

Sandhill Sling Photo Gallery

[Show as slideshow]

Two extra pictures for Alycia, who commented below. (Click or touch to enlarge.)