Summer Basics: Toile Mobile Pocket Bag

A five inch zipper.

A remnant from an old lined curtain reworked.

An hour and a half's work from first cut to final stitch.

No pattern - sized as I sewed.

Sized to hold cell phone, iPod and a coin/credit card purse. 

Included a mini pocket inside to hold a subway or train pass.

EnchBySew-50: Tote’in for the Festive Season - Holiday Postcard

Click on this link in iTunes   to download the 50'th episode of the Enchanted by Sewing Audio Podcast,  produced in December of 2016.

Or listen directly on the web by clicking on http://traffic.libsyn.com/enchantedbysewing/FINALHolidayBagLaurelShimer.mp3

This December I’ve put more time into sewing, than blogging about sewing. So though I’ve actually sewn five items – I’ve only blogged about two of them - so far. I’m hoping I'll find some time to post about what I’ve made, next week, because I really enjoy having a sewing journal.

I love looking back through my blog and remembering – oh that’s right Back in December of 2016 I made
* Queen Cordelia – a printed courderoy princess seamed shirt with ¾ len sleeves, fun buttons and some collar embellishment
* A pair of front-pleated denim trousers
* A  night shirt for my husband,
* A simple flannel baby blanket
* A flat bottomed tote bag

This Month’s Show is a holiday postcard, focusing on the basic technicos/techniques of sewing a flat-bottomed bag that can serve the combined purpose of being both a tote and gift bag.

Five reasons to know how to sew a tote

1 - Save money or just  be Green: I don’t know about where you live, but around here, we get chargd 10 cents for store bags -it’s really worth remembering your tote bag!

2) Be Arty as well as green and clean up your sewing resource inventory : A tote bag is a handy way to use up fabric scraps and remnents. I serves as a  vehicle for trying out favorite or new embellishment techniques like embroidery, craft button designs, beading, quilting or a collage made of scraps of  lace and trims

 3) A tote bag is a basic sewing project . It’s  a good  way to stare learning to sew, or get back into sewing . It doesn’t take very long and you can practice basic seaming and other sewing techniques.

4) Unlike garment sewing - A tote bag does not require fitting!

5) A tote bag makes a great packable and reusable gift. If you have the resources on hand - You could even decide to make one an hour or so before it’s needed!

I blogged about, a tote I made earlier this month for visitng family members as a holiday gift. That posting includes four photos intended to show basic steps of tote bag sewing.

BTW I included a pound and a half box of biscotti from a wonderful local Italian deli – Diandras in San Mateo at Crystal Springs shopping center . If they ate , or shared, all the cookies during the conference they came for, they could use the tote to carry home their dirty laundry. Back home They can use it for grocery shopping or They can pass it on to somebody else as a gift bag. The bag itself was small and light weight , so it wasn’t going to make trouble when it came to taking their bags back on the airplane.


Technicos/Techniques: How to sew a flat-bottomed tote

Photo Collage and brief summary of basic steps for sewing the tote http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2016/12/green-sewing-tote-bag-for-reusable.html

Lucky Locket's Mobile Device Pocket Bag

 

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Kitty Fisher found it.

Nothing in it, nothing in it,

But a ribbon round it. 

traditional Nursery Rhyme

I'm right up there with Lucy Locket when it comes to the value of a portable pocket.

I don't sew as many pockets in my clothes anymore, now that I've gotten in the habit of wearing cross-body bags.  I need to have my iPod and iPhone handy, especially since my phone has an app that tracks my exercise. I also listen to audio books a lot on my iPod, so I pretty much always have this kind of bag on me. Mobile devices are pretty hard on clothing pockets, and there's always the chance they'll slip out too.

Here's a new portable pocket bag I just finished. It has a very sturdy zipper across the top and the strap is made from a recycled leather strap on a 1930's binocular bag - the binocs are still good but the strap was coming off. I punched two holes in each end of the straps, then fixed it inside the corners with a button on each end to keep things secure.

No pattern, just lots of folding and thinking and working with the scrap I had leftover from the tapestry cap I posted about last time. Thanks again to Susan for the fabric. I used just about every inch of a 25x25 home dec square for these two items - both of which, I know from experience,  I will use until they wear out.

Tapestry Purses/Totes/Bags - Sewing Day with Susan

My buddy Susan, made a number of really beautiful purses and totes from tapestry prints with McCalls M5822. The pattern envelope doesn't show what great creations are possible with this pattern, or else Susan is simply a better designer than whomever created their display pieces.

In this month's Enchanted by Sewing Audio Podcast show, I'm interviewing Susan and we talk about her experiences making these gorgeous purses. You can sign up to get an email when that (and other) monthly episodes are published. I publish the shows shortly before the end of each month.

I like the way Susan altered the print so she uses both directions on this purse!

Oh lucky sisters and sister-in-law who got these purses for Christmas!

In Progress: This is my favorite purse

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

 Listen in on my Sewing Life in the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast http://www.enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com

McCalls M5822 - http://mccallpattern.mccall.com/m5822-products-9415.php?page_id=104

1001 Nights: Scheherazade's Peacock Purse

Scherazade's Purse Sewn by L.R. Shimer
Hot Patterns Vintage HotPatterns Hangbag Heaven Nairobi Handbag
Iman Home Fabrics, Punjab Peacock Radicchio

Do you laugh when people ask you... "But where do you get your ideas?" Ideas are not our problem, are they? I know that my head is tumbling full of them, and I bet yours is too. It's completing the projects inspired by these thousand and one ideas that's the challenge!

Our sewing stories are like the thousand and one stories that Scherazade told her husband. There's always another one waiting to be imagined. Still, I thought it would be fun, perhaps for the sake of the people who don't think the way many of us do*, to think about where the inspiration for each of my sewing stories comes from.

Do you recall that it was Scherazade's own idea to be married to the shahryar who was infamous for having already married and beheaded a 1001 wives? To my mind the man sounds like a power-mad brute, but Scherazade saw him as a challenge. She believed that he was just one crazy, mixed-up dude who, having been betrayed by one woman, had gone mad by love. Her plan was to keep him entertained by telling him story after story. Of course she told him that the stories were for her little sister, Dinazade. As the light of morning broke after a dramatic story filled night, Scherazade always managed to leave her most recent story hanging. Her version of story-telling therapy worked. After a thousand and one stories, the shahryar was cured. The couple went on to a happy life together.

Who'd a thunk it? Well, I guess marriage is always a chancy business.

I can fit four dvd boxes to go back to the library in my bag. I like to envision Scherazade, perhaps with help from Dinazade, packing her toothbrush and nightie in a bag much like mine, when she went off to take her chances on marriage. When I walk off to the library, or downtown to buy a box of bandaids, with my Scherazade-inspired purse hanging over my shoulder, the beautiful Rimsky-Korsakov symphony runs through my head. You can listen to it here.

Sewing Details:

I finished creating Scheherazade's peacock purse last week. Bare Bones: It's made using a "Vintage HotPatterns Hangbag Heaven Nairobi Handbag" pattern. The material is designed by Iman Home Fabrics and is called "Punjab Peacock Radicchio". ( Updated Note - That fabric doesn't seem to be available anymore, but I found a very pretty print that is, the NY Fashion Center one shown above) I'm not sure if I managed to cut it out of the half a yard the pattern suggests, because I had bought two half yard pieces. I sewed a simple tote for my daughter out of some of it. Also I wanted to have a lot of peacock eyes nicely displayed so I'm sure I used more fabric than I normally would, laying out the pattern pieces just so.

I also quilted, in the ditch, along the seam lines, using scraps of some type of cotton heirloom quilt type batting that I happened to have on time. It gives it a nice shape and heft. The lining is a jade green poly/satin I recycled from an old bridesmaid dress I found for free. Instead of the pocket included in the pattern, I cut off a small poofy sleeve from the dress and stitched it down inside. The sleeve had elastic at top and bottom. It works great as an inner pocket.

*Hey some of us are network/web thinkers and others are more focused and linear, right?