The simple things...

I love a red bag... simple, elegant and striking...

Looking at the left-over fabric from the Mod bag I made a while ago, I thought "City Bag".  It's a simple, elegant and striking sort of bag.

And then I got a bit fancy and thought to do some of the zippers that I'll be teaching in the zipper class on Saturday.... which was all very well on the inside.  There's an exposed zipper pocket and a zipped divider pocket in there.

But... on the outside, there are two exposed zipper pockets, all nicely lined with spotty red lining.

And if I EVER start getting fancy notions like this again, please...

• Remind me that thick upholstery weight microfibre suede doesn't follow any of the usual fabric rules. (Remind me of the inability to press or fuse things into place... or even pin). This is all very well until one decides to do an exposed zipper in it.

• Remind me how long it took me to turn the strap through and how almost-impossible it was topstitch the ends, and how long it took to stitch it around the o-ring.

• Remind me about how unbending and un-stitch-through-able heavy metal-teeth zips are.

• And remind me how the quality of workmanship is more important when a design is kept simple.

Typically, I finished it and thought, "Oh, isn't that lovely?"

But PLEASE... don't allow it the idea to seduce me again.  Remind me that I'm scarred, bitter and twisted..... and no matter HOW stylish the finished result promises to be, NEXT TIME  things will be different.  (Next time, the strap will be a different fabric and the zippers will ALL be on the inside!)

It wasn't fun.

And it's not perfect.

But I like it.

..........................

PS. If you'd like to do the Zippers for Bags class, I beleve there may be one or two places left on the October 6th date.

A Couple of City Chicks

I'm doing a bit of a revamp of bag samples. I want to have lots of fresh and inspirational things to take up to Addicted to Fabric next week, I want to overhaul the look of the pattern covers and... well... I keep coming up with new ways of interpreting the patterns, and want to SHOW you!

Among other things, the City Bag got a freshening up.
I made this one from a few (garment-sewing) offcuts of fairly heavy green linen and patched over a panel of a scrap left over from one of my original A-line skirts. I used 32mm flat o-rings in antique brass colour.

This one, I made from quilting fabric I bought at GJ's for a completely different project..... but I thought it might work as a City Bag. I put a tri-glide on the strap to make it adjustable. (Tutorial for an adjustable strap HERE).

And here are two I prepared earlier.... but hadn't photographed properly. You can see my original post about them HERE. This red and black one is a quilting fabric I bought at GJ's about three or four years ago. The orange one below is made from the last few scraps of orange moleskin I had left over from hat-making days. The panel is a bit of Kaffe.

As a handbag to use and carry, I really love the City Bag. I've all but completely worn out the original cover-girl one, which I made in upholstery-weight microfibre 'suede' (and machine embroidered a huge bug on it). It always gets lots of comments.

I wear my City Bag hands-free style - across my body - and the curved shape at the top sits comfortably around my body, but it can equally be worn over one shoulder. The zip at the top makes it secure and it has a zippered pocket and compartment pocket in the lining.

I'm a bit inspired to make a few more, but I have other samples to make.

HOT in the City....

I really hope the Bureau of Meteorology is playing some sick sort of joke, and that we're NOT facing a week of 40 degrees days (around 100F I think?). Note to friends in the Northern Hemisphere - PLEASE send us an arctic blast or two...? A HINT of coolness...?

Ok - got that off my chest - now back to sewing....

I made this City Bag on the weekend. I think it looks a bit Hawaiian-shirt-ish - a bit of happy Summer (as opposed to oppressive, scorching summer... Sorry - I'll shut up about it in a minute...).

I kept it pretty simple - with 32mm Flat O-rings in the straps and a plain boxed-corner base (pic below). I used Fast2Fuse as the base support because it's flexible and comfortable when the bag is slung around the body (over the head - hands-free style) which is a really easy way to wear this bag.
This one (below) is cotton moleskin in a gorgeous shade of orange (that won't photograph easily!). It tones in beautifully with this Kaffe Fassett print.

Slightly more detail here. The same o-rings as above, but also an eyelet in the strap and an oval zipper-pull.

I also included a structured base on this bag. This is the method I teach so that you can add a hard base and purse feet to any box-cornered bag. It uses Vilene S520 and Template Plastic as support (and requires competent sewing machine skills).

I'll be teaching this method at the Stitches and Craft Show as well as in A Sharper Edge classes. I also offer a printed tutorial (if requested) with purchases of Vilene S520 and Template Plastic.

Last pic... this is the inside of the bag. It has a large zipped pocket and a compartment pocket.

I'm just going to lap up the air-conditioned comfort of home for a while and steel myself for tomorrow. My studio is NOT air conditioned and I have a date with a fusing press...!!!?