Covered in Threadmalaka’s adventure in sewing

I love hobo bags.  I’m not really sure what constitutes calling a purse a “hobo bag” because I’ve seen them in all sizes, but I always seem to like them.  I think it has something to do with the strap length.   One day I started searching around for an easy purse pattern, and I kept stumbling upon the same one: J Caroline’s Hobo Bag Tutorial.

Aimee says I’m an “offroader” because I’ll make anything, unsupervised.  She likes to have someone teach her how to make things.  I will admit, she wastes a lot less material than I do ;)  My sewing teacher told me that the definition of creativity is when you are the student AND the teacher.  Thanks, Ann!! That made me feel creative.  My mom will agree that I’m creative, but I think that creative is quite possible the furthest description of me.  Who knows, maybe times are changing?

Anyway, this hobo bag tutorial came with a printable pattern.  I printed it, taped it together, and realized it’s way bigger than I need.  Besides it called for yards of fabric, and I only had half-yards.  I cut it down and ended up with this baby.

I added a few things to it: an interior pocket, an interior zip pocket, and a snap closure.  I know, I’m wild and crazy!

I learned a ton, again.  I should have used heavier interfacing, but I had used all my super firm with the box bags.  I need to stock up on that stuff, it makes a huge difference when making bags.

I also learned that purse hardware is expensive! The magnetic snaps are $4 EACH! The rings are the same, but I stole these off an old purse. Knowing that I’m going to be making lots more of these, I went to ebay and started looking around.

I hit the jackpot. Overseas sellers pimping out wholesale purse hardware. I picked up a bunch of little tiny clasps for keyfobs inside of purses, a ton of o-rings, and 25 pairs of magnetic snaps. It was ridiculously cheap (I think around $50 for all of it, including shipping from Korea) and it got here within a week and a half.  I’m well stocked, for now.

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