Just a simple pattern... (Ha!)

I have a friend (well, I have lots of friends...) I have a specific friend - she spent Christmas in Honduras and she took a picture while she was there, of bags. Beach bags.

And she sent me a copy of her pictures. Unfortunately, she had the head of a diesel engine and an autopilot in her luggage, and she was hot and tired and she only took one picture. And she didn't buy a bag... She reasoned that she would be able to figure out the pattern and she would be able to make a similar bag herself.

I'm not sure how she is coming along with her bag, but I can tell you what is happening with mine...

 I made a pattern to start off with. I had trouble with the paper - it kept curling up on me, which made this even more difficult. The other issue is that I was working from a picture... A facebook friend said she had used a pattern to make a reversible bag, and she found the name and author for me, and I found the author, by, alas, my email went unanswered...

I soldiered on...

 I made a second pattern, since I seemed to have the basic idea down. What you are seeing here is the third pattern, which encloses the second pattern. Take the left hand half of the flask shape above. See the horizontal line about half way down that side? That was the whole pattern. I put it on the fold of the fabric and I cut out a bag! It was cute... NOT the beach bag I was looking for, but cute none the less.

This is that bag. It has a little pocket in the front, and the straps are long enough but the bottom part of the bag would hold your sunglasses and your novel when you went to the beach, but certainly it is NOT a beach bag.

 I doubled the length of the bag, added the handle right onto the pattern (it was a separate piece in the first bag) and copied it opened out so I could lay it out on the fabric more easily. I wrote Helen's name on it, so I wouldn't forget whose bag the pattern was to be named after, I guess. And I found some more beach-y fabric...

And I cut the whole thing out again.

 

 When I went to put it together, though, it was so skinny, you would have had to roll your novel up inside the beach towel to make it a tube to go in there. Hmmmmm. I took it and my seam ripper to my Mom and Dad's this afternoon for my visit. And I reverse sewed the bottom of the bag. Then I borrowed safety pins and straight pins, and (ONLY PRICKING MY FINGER ONCE) I pinned the bag back together. This meant that the bottom was zany, but the front and back of the bag criss-crossed where I wanted it to.

 I brought it home with me.

 After I started this blog entry, I went downstairs repinned the bottom, (ONLY PRICKING MYSELF ONCE THIS TIME TOO - a different finger, for variety!) trimmed it (without actually trying to cut through any of the pins.) (I have ruined one pair of scissors and, at least one rotary cutter blade trying to cut straight pins in half!) Then I sewed the sucker together. and turned it right side out.

 Well, this is more like it!! I marked the area for a pocket, and got that sewed in there, and I put a button loop and a button on there! (The pocket is just a blob sewn in where the fabric overlaps... I should put another picture here... Just a sec! Okay, there is my hand in the pocket. I'm not sure I would put my wallet in there, but your keys and your sunglasses would work!) :-)

I gathered the top of the strap together, and Voila! One bag.

Candidly, I have a high opinion of my own abilities. I'm good in math, I can type, and, usually, spell. I like computers and technology and I have enough artistic talent that I can draw. I can follow directions, knit, crochet, tat, sew, read music and quilt.

I am NOT good at creating patterns. This bag will never be reversible. I believe I will have to do some handsewing on the inside to hold the flaps down. I can't figure out another way to do the bottom with all those layers of fabric (8 for the most part.) although I could put a flat bottom on there, if I wanted to... (Except, of course, that that would mean taking this bottom of this apart again - and I'm not going to... Maybe I should have sewn the crisscrossed layers together before I sewed the bottom together... maybe there is someway to sew the outside layers together and then the inside layers?? If there is, I can't picture it in my head! Alas!!)

I am happy with my beach bag, but I don't believe I will make a big pile of them. It isn't that it is hard to make, I'm just not sure that I haven't just cobbled it together... this bag is a Kludge. (I can't believe I said that...)

Ah well. Hope you enjoyed the unending saga of Helen's Bag!  This is number 2 (and if that doesn't make any sense, read yesterday's blog post - Just another Jar of Inspiration!)