Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Making a tote bag

Inspired by all the sewing my housemate Alicia and neighbor Daniela have been doing lately, I recently decided to try my hand at making a tote bag.  I ordered some fun fabrics from ReproDepot, borrowed Daniela's sewing machine, and jumped in.  I didn't have a pattern and don't really know how to sew, so I ran into a few snags...I had somehow forgotten my housemate Alicia's description of how it should all work, and sewed up both the bag and the lining completely.  For a minute I was very puzzled about how to flip the bag over the lining, and realized it was impossible without ripping out a bunch of stitches.  I also decided half-way through the process that it would be nice to make the bag reversible, which meant that I should have sewn on the bird cut-out and pockets before sewing the bag and lining together, so that the stitching would not be visible on the other side.  Since I didn't, I ended up doing alot more hand sewing than was probably necessary.  I never realized how much thinking ahead and planning you have to do in sewing! Happily, everything turned out ok in the end.  

Here are some photos:






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