So my boyfriend, overestimating my powers of craftiness, asked me to make him a bag to safely store books while he's at work. (He has an army backpack that he keeps with him, but he landscapes in the summer so everything gets dirty.) He wanted it made out of an old brown towel.
Me, I'm no seamstress. Just got a sewing machine in April & have done two little projects with it. But I'm such an optimist when it comes to crafts. I decide that while it might be ugly & utilitarian on the outside, the inside will be lined with nice, pretty fabric. And it will have a really cool button. Oh, and maybe a little storage pouch inside for bookmarks...
So I go get all the stuff I need, which includes heavy-duty thread & machine needles, plus the liner fabric -yellow with Japanese maple leaves- & a cool horn button.
It takes an eternity to cut everything. Have you every cut terry cloth? Brown fuzz EVERYWHERE. Finally get it cut. Now for the sewing machine...
Load the bobbin with thread. Ok, I remember this part. Thread the machine. So far, so good. Raise the bobbin thread. OH HELL. Not happening. I cried a little. I got stabbed with pins a little. I drank a little. FINALLY I get it to work, after ripping wads of brown heavy-duty thread out of my sewing machine's innards.
Keep in mind that I am going about this from a completely non-professional standpoint. I decided that I should first sew the lining onto the terry. It ended up a little crooked, and the seams were a bit reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster, but it wasn't a total wash at this point.
Next, I turned it so the lining was on the outside and sewed the two side seams. Again, a little crooked but not completely heinous. So now I have the basic body of the bag and I'm pretty proud of myself! Time for the embellishments.
I tried sewing a piece of blue ribbon trim along the bottom of the closure flap. There is a quilt design called Drunkard's Path, which is actually a very pretty symmetrical and geometric pattern. My stitching on the ribbon much more closely resembled a REAL drunkard's path. I ended up cutting the bottom off, trim and all. I figure it's okay if the flap is just a little bit shorter than originally planned.
Okay, forget the ribbon. Time to work on the buttonhole. I read my handy Singer Prelude manual only to find that I am supposed to have a special buttonhole FOOT. Pssht, I think to myself. I can do it without some fancy foot.
One hour later, I have an ugly brown bag with an ugly gash surrounded by ugly stitching. Nothing for it now, I'll just sew on the button and be done with it.
Well damned if the button doesn't have to be hand-sewn. I spend another 30 minutes doing this. By the time I've finished, I've consumed 3 shots of whiskey, been stabbed about 6 times, wasted about 30 yards of thread, and covered all work surfaces with brown terry fuzz.
The bag is ugly. But you know what? He needed a sturdy, nondescript bag in which to store his beloved books away from the dirt and grass, and by God, he got one.
