Sew-vivor, Up-cycle Plastic Bag Tote

Well with a little push from my friend Janelle at Emmaline Bags & Patterns. I have decided to jump into the Sew-vivor auditions.

So I came up with a new pattern for a tote to hold my Kobo (and also my dream of a perfect tote to put my iPad mini in.)  That is of course just a dream, sadly to say I don't have a iPad mini. It is so great to have a safe place to put it just in case, one shows up for Mother's Day or something. (Yes it is a suggest in case my DH is reading this.)

With the new pattern I had to come up with a new fabric to go with it.  Plastic fabric or fused plastic - I'm not sure how to describe it. Something that is water proof, sews up like fabric and can be any colour or design you want.

In my case many colours of polka dots, the funniest one having text that says "recycle where facilities exist". I laughed when I saw the symbol fit perfectly into my dot size. Well if I was going to reuse/up-cycle items for this tote, I should try to reuse pretty much everything I could think of. Plastic bags became the fabric, an old car seat belt became the strap for it (that way it is adjustable from on the shoulder to over body). I did use cotton duck, felt, thread, magnetic closures, and interfacing that were all new to ensure good structure for the bag. 

I use to make fused plastic material years ago and then sew up bags - heck I also use to make up plarn (yarn derived from plastic bags) and crochet up bags with that as well.  I was known to do that, so hence my piles of plastic bags that people use to give me.  I have since gotten stronger and said no more plastic bags.  So my stash is getting smaller, which is a good thing. I have even folded them nice and neat and placed them in boxes so they take up less room.

I have written up two tutorials, one How To Make Plastic Fabric, and one How To Sew With Plastic Fabric. So get out your bags and irons and go to town and see what you can come up with. The skies the limit or is it more your plastic stash is your limit.

Where has the time gone.

OK the New Year was awhile ago, and it is hard to believe that it will be March 1st tomorrow.

I have been sewing so many things since November. I have lost track of all that I have done and sadly I have not gotten up a white board to use for taking my pictures. Needless to say I have not gotten the perfect pictures of what I have done.  I will post some of the better pictures I have of some of my projects. It is sad when you don't have that picture to remind you what you have made. It really helps having the pictures. So you can see what you want to make again,  and to see what you want to change on the bag. I guess when I get a few days to get it up and running I will start getting those great shots again.

 

I used OCD Obsessive Crafting Disorder tutorial for the Mini Messenger.  I really like how it turned out. A very good tutorial, and easy to make. She has a few other tutorials I think I will try. I had fun with the hardware on this purse, it is a new Magnetic snap that I haven't tried before.  It has a post that comes out a hole in the magnetic part and lines up on the outside of the magnetic.

 

The mini messenger from OCD Obsessive Crafting Disorder.

New purse to replace the old one....and a few others

October is here already and I'm just starting to really get back to sewing again.  The boys are back in school now which helps.  I have been going on school field trips with them, which is fun to do.

I got a chance to finish some purses that I needed to do for a while.  Both of my sisters received their Birthday purses a little late.  Better late than never seems to apply to the purses. I also finished a purse for myself.

The Two-Hour Tulip Purse

This is the Tulip Purse I made for my Sister Jennifer. The pattern is by Janice D. Pope. A good pattern to use. I love how it turned out, the colors remind me of Fall my favorite time of year.

Vogue pattern V8680

This purse I made for my Sister Elizabeth.  I used leather and upholster fabric with this. I think I would have been happier with it, if I used the fabric on the bottom of the bag.  That way you wouldn't get the leather showing at the bottom.


Here is my purse, I had started this purse in the Spring, but couldn't sew the top trim down using my walking foot machine.
I just recently pick up a machine that I could use to sew the top of the purse. (more about my new toy on a later post.)


 I can't remember what pattern I used for this purse. I love the colors I used in this bag, nice and bright. Just enough room for my wallet, coin purse and a few other things.  It's nice to have a purse that isn't too big.


I'm busy working with Jeans right now whipping up a few new bags.  I might even think up a pattern for the one purse I'm working on. 

PDF Patterns Good or Bad?

I'm a big fan of PDF patterns.  That being said I have a few concerns about them.  I didn't run into a problem before until I decided to purchased an out of print pattern for a Speed Skating suit for my son.

The pattern ended up being 72 pages. 72 pages that all have to be printed out to make up the pattern.  That is because they have 22 sizes in the pattern.  It was unbelievable each piece of the pattern was scanned in no real order. The trouble being that it was the large pattern sheets that were scanned.  Not by each pattern piece. So you start printing out the pages but they don't give you an over all picture to show you what pieces go together. So you have 72 pages to go through.

 I made the mistake of cutting out the patterns to the size I wanted, thinking that this would help me put them all together.Wrong! What a mess as you can see.  I couldn't make heads or tails out of it, I was 2 days of trying to put the pieces together.  The collar for the suit took 5 different pieces being taped together to give me the full pattern piece.  That meant that it was on 5 different pages that where printed out.  I can't believe that they couldn't think of another way to do this PDF.

Once you finished the cutting and taping together.  I found the rest of the pattern didn't have much for written instruction.  Good thing I know how to sew and follow along with diagrams.  I have no idea if there was a better instruction sheet in the original pattern.

I bought this pattern as it was what I needed for a skin suit for speed skating for my son. As it was no longer in print I had no choice but to buy the PDF.  I have purchased a lot of PDF patterns for purse making, I like the convenience on it and the fact there is no cost for postage.  So I thought I would give it a try.  I will not be purchasing anymore PDF for clothing as I fear that this is about what you are going to get.  I have spent more on ink and paper and sweat hours trying to put the pattern together.  Postage would have seemed cheap in comparison.

I loved the look of the suit when all was said and done.  I have made him two suits so far and will most likely try another one later in the skating season.  So at least I had a finished product for the trouble.  The main thing is try to find out how the PDF is made up and if all the pattern and instruction has to be printed out. And I guess buyer beware is sometime needed.