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January 27, 2007

Beachcomber Bags.

Gat Your Craft On!
January 2007: Bag.
I finished my bags for the kids. Phew. I can't recall if I decided I wanted to make a bag for taking along on walks on the beach first, or if I decided that I wanted to sew plastic first. Chicken or the egg?

Joann Fabric had several weights of plastic available. I went with 16 ga which was the second thickest. I think the thicknesses went from 4 (thin) to 20 (thick). The 16 ga is nice and sturdy, and the bags hold their shape very well. My sewing machine was not thrilled with 4 layers of plastic, but it went through them. I would recommend heavy duty needles for your machine. Also, I wanted to sew with upholstery thread, but my machine decided about half way through that thick thread would not do. Instead I doubled all of the seams.

I held various sizes of rectangular household items up against the kids until I had an approximate size for each of their bags. Then I made a template which included 5/8 seam allowances. Five-Eighths Rules! I cut the templates out of paper and then taped them on to the plastic. Ah, the joys of sewing with plastic. No fraying. No stretching. No pins. Scotch tape. What could be easier than that? Well, it seems that the tape does leave sticky marks on the plastic. I'd advise the least sticky tape you can find. I finally went out and bought a rotary cutter and mat, but I cut the rectangles out using scissors and an X-acto knife.

To sew the embroideries, I found photos online, resized them, and printed them out. Then I traced the outline on to tracing paper using a little lightbox I bought at Michaels a while ago. (I need a bigger, brighter lightbox—the one I have now is ridiculously small. Oh dear, I should never have googled that. Another thing to add to my wish list.) I taped the tracing paper to the inside of the plastic and sewed along the lines. I was worried that the tracing paper would not do the trick, but it worked just fine. It was a bit of a pain to pull it off, but a pin and a pair of tweezers is all you need.

I did not stress about finishing everything off as nicely as I normally would. There wasn't really a way to finish it off cleanly that I could come up with. So I just pulled all of the threads from the front through to the back, knotted them, and and trimmed the ends.

The straps gave me pause, but I decided to just sew two pieces of plastic together and slap them on. I wanted them to be a bit adjustable, so I used stick-on velcro. I wonder if I will wish I had sewn the velcro on, but I got heavy duty stick-on stuff and I think it should be fine.

I am an inpatient crafter. I don't prewash fabrics. I don't do test runs. I just jump in. Well, I did not check the thread tension and I subsequently ended up with a hairy sand crab. The hairy sand crab is mocking me. I had to hold myself back from redoing it, but isn't that what this is all about? Trying things and learning from them? So the hairy sand crab stays. (If you don't know what a sand crab is, well, you should know. Don't miss sand crabs—they are so cute!)

I loved making these bags. I loved sewing with the plastic. I loved doing the embroidery with the machine although usually my tendency would be to hand embroider. I loved not finishing all of the seams. It was super fun!

Posted by grrlTravels at January 27, 2007 3:13 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Debberoo at January 27, 2007 11:00 PM

Posted by: tshapedgirl at January 28, 2007 11:32 AM

Posted by: Mrs Figby at January 28, 2007 9:14 PM

Posted by: Barb at January 29, 2007 12:31 AM

Posted by: Jen at January 29, 2007 8:34 AM