Covered in Threadmalaka’s adventure in sewing

Once the sewing room was set up adequately,  I went to Joann’s and picked up a few supplies.  Random fabrics, snaps, thread.  New scissors because we all know what happens when husbands get a hold of our good fabric scissors.. they want to use them to cut pipe, or something equally as damaging.

I started looking online for purse or bag tutorials, because I thought that would be something simple to start with.  There are soo many cute bags on etsy, but they’re way out of my skill level at this point.   I found a tutorial for a little coin/credit card/id pouch on splityarn’s blog. I made a bunch of those suckers.  I had no use for them, but they taught me some good beginner skills.  Changing the size and closure makes for good ipod/phone/misc device holder, especially when using a nice fleece for the inerior.

Right after I looked up a bunch of zipper tutorials and was about to teach myself how to do them without fear, Aimee suggested we take the “Zippers 5 Ways” class from Ann at Austin Stitching Studio.  I was in, and I took along my Mother-in-Law who recently moved to town and wants to pick sewing back up, too.  We had fun in class and learned a LOT about zippers.  Zipper fear, completely erased for $30. Ok, zipper fear mostly erased.

Zippers in hand, I went searching for some ideas online.  I found a tutorial for a box bag on dragoknit’s blog.  It took me a couple of hours to figure it out, but when I did, I emerged from the mess with this:

box bag

I ran down the street to show Aimee and she was thoroughly impressed with the use of my new knowledge.  After uploading it to flickr, a friend commented that she needed a new makeup bag.  I was wondering what I was going to do with these bags after I made them — the perfect excuse, make them for other people!

fun with box bags