Making Memories

As I started writing this post featuring my newest bag-make, I wondered where Sara Lawson, the owner and bag-designer of Sew Sweetness Patterns, got the name Paladin. Google tells me that, over time, it has come to refer to high-level officials in imperial, majestic and royal courts. Here’s my spin—high-level court officials need to keep a lot of information under wraps, to not let their subjects know what’s going on behind the scenes. Paladin hides three pockets under one zipper, giving you a lot more room than you think you have when you first pick up the bag. It’s a handy little—or not-so-little—bag. The pattern comes in three sizes: small–7” long x 5” tall x 2½” deep, medium–9” long x 6½” tall x 3” deep, and large–10½” long x 8” tall x 3½” deep.

I put the Paladin Pouch together in 15 minute snatches of time during a two-three week period when I was in final preparations for a cabaret show with about 20 musical theatre students, a three-rehearsal gig for a semi-staged version of “South Pacific,” and near-final rehearsals for “Cabaret,” along with keeping up with the repertoire and rehearsal needs of my eleven students, musical theatre or classical voice students at the local university. I didn’t sit down and watch Sara’s entire video, which would have helped. I didn’t sit and read through the pattern before starting. I just cut, fused, and sewed. I made a couple of mistakes, but it’s done and it’s okay.

The bag has three pockets that are contained under one long zipper that extends beyond the edge of the bag, giving you the ability to open the bag wide so you can access everything in all three pockets. The middle pocket has a clever bit of stitching that makes it a smaller pocket. You can put change or a lipstick or some folded paper money or coins in that pocket. It’s a versatile design!

I will make the two larger sizes once I’m out from under the workload I’m currently carrying. These would be nice holiday gifts for shoppers to buy. I have a stash of great fabric that will make them good additions to a couple of consignment shops near me.

The fabric in this bag is designed by Joel Dewberry for Free Spirit. I believe the collection is Modern Meadow. The exterior fabric is Dogwood Bloom; the lining fabric is Herringbone. The color name for both is Pond. You can find several vendors on Etsy who still carry this fabric. Or you can search for it on Google and find a few shops who have done a good job with populating their fabric databases. 😉 (Once a geek, always a geek.)

I’ll enjoy using or gifting this bag, and will look forward to a freer schedule so I can make more.

You probably know how I love trying new bag patterns, and how I love a bargain. Well, let me start this off by saying that I receive too many email newsletters (i.e. “come-ons”) from fabric stores. One that I have liked over the years is Connecting Threads. They’re located in Vancouver, Washington, and they have a beautiful, color-filled catalog that they occasionally send to my home for me to dream over. The trouble began when they had a sale. In their weekly newsletter, they offered me a kit to make a nice-looking bag for fifteen or twenty percent off the regular price. Okay, so they didn’t offer it just to me, but I heard them calling my name.

I answered the call and ordered the kit, which included all the fabric I would need and the pattern. The bag is called the “Surprise Bag.” Why? Because, according to the pattern description, the designer was “surprised by how much it holds.” As I’m writing this post, I’ve looked back at the pattern instructions and I notice, on page 2, a disclaimer by the Connecting Threads owners: “these patterns have not been independently tested by Connecting Threads.” First error. If any of their bag-making customers or staff members had tried making this bag before it was added to the catalog and website, I’m pretty sure it would never have made the cut.

Before I move forward, let me remind you that I’ve made a lot of bags in my sewing lifetime. I may have made over a hundred bags. I’ve seen very good patterns. I’ve seen so-so patterns. I’ve never seen a pattern this odd.

Now one of the main tenets by which I live is “be kind.” And I hesitate to denigrate all the work the designer, “Sewing Sue,” put into this bag. I’m sure she spent many hours designing the bag, making test versions, and documenting her work for the instruction sheet. But this bag is a major fail as it is written. It took me many hours of stitching and ripping, during the time in which I was having serious problems with my Bernina 330, to arrive at a finished bag. If I had not spent $30 or so on this bag kit, I probably would have thrown it in the trashcan. More than once.

See the two photos in the previous paragraph? So how beautifully that first bag is standing? That’s the photo I saw before purchasing the bag kit. See how, in the second photo, the bag is slouching. It’s the kind of bag to which Grandma would call out, “Stand up straight!” That’s your first clue. A bag that is properly interfaced and reinforced should not slouch like that. At least this type of bag. A bag that’s designed to be slouchy? Slouch all you want. Skimp on the interfacing. That’s okay. This is not okay. Compare those two photos from Connecting Threads’ website to the first two photos of my finished bag. Please tell me you can recognize the difference.

As I began reading the cutting instructions, I noticed the only fabric other than the quilting cotton was fusible fleece. Fleece interfacing is used in bag construction to give it some padding, to protect the items you’re going to carry around inside. Fleece is for blankets and jackets, not for sturdy bags. I use Pellon SF101, tradename “ShapeFlex”, to give the bag some shape! Sometimes I use fusible fleece along with the ShapeFlex, depending on whether the bag is going to carry my phone or my iPad. To NOT use ShapeFlex or a similar weight interfacing on a bag is asking for a disaster, for a useless bag. One other point: when I purchase fabric for a bag, it is high quality quilting cotton. It has some oomph to it. I do not buy a lower-priced soft cotton like I might use to make a blouse. I want my bags to last for years, to stand up to heavy useage. I pay more for my fabric and I get what I pay for. The fabric that came in this kit was not high quality quilting cotton. It needed interfacing.

As I began cutting out the pattern pieces, I made sure to interface each one, in addition to the fleece that I fused to the pieces that called for fleece.That’s the first Big Deal.

My second “What the Hell?” moment came when I made the zippered pockets on the outside. As I followed the designer’s zipper insertion instructions, I had to sew and rip several times before I said to myself, “This will not do.” I scratched my head, thought back to numerous (at least a hundred) zippers that I’ve installed, and made it work.

I continued on through the instructions, interrupted over the months by rehearsals for “Into the Woods” and voice students’ lessons and performances and end-of-semester juries; by a quick road trip to Newport, Kentucky, to meet some of my closest cousins (per DNA); by the last-minute decision to go work at Interlochen Arts Camp in the dance department for three weeks; by the vagaries of my Bernina when it comes to bag construction; and by the decision, while at Interlochen, to take advantage of a Juki sewing machine sale at the Sew Deja Vu fabric store in Worthington, Ohio. Now I’m settled in with my new Juki TL-2010Q. It is a simple straight-stitch machine that is dedicated to bag making. And this bag maker is very happy.

I have a couple of commissions waiting to be started, one for a Crews cousin in Georgia, and one for a musical friend in the next county over in Pennsylvania. Before I dug into those, I wanted to clean off my sewing table, which involved finishing up this “Surprise Bag.” The state in which I had left it before I drove to northern Michigan was with the lining of the side panels half done. Why half done? Because I couldn’t figure out what in the hell Sewing Sue’s instructions meant. I stared at the bag repeatedly and finally fiddled around with the unsewn seam and some pins and hand sewed it in place. Then all that was left to do was the top edges where D-rings would be placed for connection to the adjustable strap. Again, I stared and fiddled and finally made it work. (Channeling Tim Gunn here. ❤️)

For the past few days, as I’ve been doing my mental wrangling with this bag, I wondered what I would do with it. Would I put it on my Etsy shop to hopefully sell? Would I just post it on Facebook for my friends to see and tell them the first person to make a $30 gift to their favorite charity could own the bag?

And last night I finished it and took pictures. The fall semester at YSU began yesterday, and now I’m in the throes of getting twenty or so singers ready for their auditions for the fall production of “Cabaret.” I had always wished my music bag that I made about three years ago had a shoulder strap, but I never made that modification. And as I was finishing this bag yesterday, I realized that, as much as I detest this pattern and wonder about Sewing Sue’s background as a bag designer, the description of this bag is correct. It’s going to hold a whole lotta stuff! It’s going to be able to carry my iPad Pro, my page-turn peddle, all my chargers, my semester organizer, and my music glasses (mid-range of my trifocals, designed to enable me to easily read the music on the music stand). One of the small pockets on the back can hold granola bars and other such snacks. The other small pocket can hold my iPhone. And when I’m walking in from the parking deck to Bliss Hall, I can either wear it crossbody or over my shoulder, using the great adjustable strap.

I traveled, really from yesterday morning to last night, from a despondency (Why did I waste so much time with this damned bag?) to Wow! (Look at this great new bag that’s going to ease my life.) Sorry, all of my Facebook friends who thought they were going to get a great new bag for the price of charity. It’s M*I*N*E!!!

P.S. Disclaimer: If I were choosing the fabric for this bag, would I have chosen this collection of fabrics? No, probably not. (Definitely not, when considering the “hand” of this collection.) I’d love to see a similar bag in a couple of companion batiks, even those batiks I brought back from Bali last year. But this was a learning exercise, so it is what it is. And what it was was a very painful learning exercise. But I survived. Oh, and let me repeat, “It’s M*I*N*E!”

Edited 9/13/2019, after using this bag to carry all my collaborative pianist “equipment” in it for almost a month. I LOVE the size, shape, and capacity of this bag. I still can’t recommend anyone use this pattern, but if you’re a wannabe bag pattern designer, figure out how to make this bag without the wonky side pieces, with more logical zipper instructions, and with all the extra interfacing and foam I used in mine, and you’ll have a winner.

I’ve been having sewing machine problems for about a year now. The most frustrating thing in a sewist’s life is walking into your sewing room with a hankering to sew. You sit down, put the pedal to the metal, and nothing good happens. Argh! I took my main machine in to the dealer and she just said, “User error.” I call bullsh*t on her. I’ve been sewing since I was 13 years old. I know what I’m doing, and this machine had a problem. (It’s known in the jargon as “birds’ nests.” My Spousal Equivalent even knows the term now, after all my complaining over the past year. When I came up to show him this first make on the new machine, he was almost asleep, but he looked at me and asked, “No birds nests?”)

From late-June into early-July, I worked at Interlochen Arts Camp in Northern Michigan to accompany dance classes for three weeks and took no sewing machines with me. It was a good break for me—a break from the sewing insanity, the disruption of my passion. When I got back, a small fabric store in Worthington, Ohio, was having a sale on the sewing machines they stock, and I was able to order the machine I had my eye on for 15% off. I placed the order, then started looking around for items I could sell to raise the money for the machine. I had a bunch of antique jewelry and silverware and several pocket watches that had been unintentionally passed down from my birthmother (here’s that story) that I’d been needing to take action on. I took it to a local gold and silver buyer, and when I walked out, I had a sizeable check to be able to split with my half-sister and pay for almost half the machine with my portion. I grabbed a couple of gigs off the Facebook “Pianists of Northeast Ohio” group, and posted fourteen old presser feet from a machine I no longer own. And now, two weeks later, I only owe $300 on the new machine, and I’ve already learned how to use it and have made my first bag. Happy, happy.

All the accessories for the machine (presser feet, bobbins, oil, and so on) came in a plastic ziploc bag. Of course that wasn’t good enough for this sewist. So I decided my first make on this machine would be a special bag to hold those goodies. Sew Sweetness designer, Sara Lawson, makes the best bag patterns I’ve found, so I opened her website. What I chose was the I-Spy Pouch. This pattern, which includes directions for three sizes, is part of the Minikins Season One collection of small easy-sew, minimal-hardware bags. I had recently fallen in love with the fabrics in the “Legendary” collection designed by Pat Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics. I had seen one of these fabrics in a bag my cousin, with whom I share a love of sewing, had posted in the Sew Sweetness Facebook group. It caught my eye, and I had ordered a bundle of fat quarters from this collection from an Etsy vendor. I sorted through that collection while standing next to my zipper stash to find a nice match.

The I-Spy Pouch has a clear vinyl window in the front so you can see what’s inside the bag. I always keep the bags in which sheets and mattress pads and other similar household goods are packed when purchased. I grabbed a small one and took it apart. It had just the right amount of vinyl for this medium-sized bag. I laid the vinyl on the ironing board, turned the iron on to the nylon setting, laid a Teflon pressing sheet over the vinyl, and proceeded to carefully remove the wrinkles in the vinyl. Thumbs up! Then I took it to my cutting table and cut the size I needed. I cut all the fabric and interfacing, fused the interfacing to the fabric, and set out on the inaugural journey.

I turned on a movie in my little sewing room television, and when the movie was over, my bag was finished. I proudly showed it to my granddaughter and her girlfriend, who are staying with me for a couple of weeks, and then ran upstairs to show my S.E. Thumbs up all the way around!!

So what do I think of my machine? I absolutely love it. It sews through the multiple layers of fabric and interfacing as if it were butter. My sense after completing my first bag with this machine is that I absolutely made the right move in purchasing it.

The one thing I didn’t say about the Juki TL 2010q is that it’s a straight stitch machine. There’s no zigzag feature. There are no multiple stitches from which to choose. It can’t make buttonholes or sew on buttons. It a semi-industrial machine that does one thing and does it well. It sews many layers of fabric together with a straight stitch.

Smart choice, Crewser!