Grainline Portside Duffle Bag

This is the second of the big Christmas presents that I made. I often find it difficult to think of presents to make for my Dad, but when the Grainline Portside Travel Set pattern was released it seemed like it might be just what I was looking for. My parents had been talking about needing a holdall for when they go away for weekends and the duffle bag looked just right. My Mum approved of the plan, so I set to work...

I used a heavy denim for the main fabric, a checked canvas for the contrast and lined the bag in plain white twill, all purchased locally (from Calico in Bristol). The shop has a great range of fabric, the only problem I had was being frustrated that I couldn't buy all of the pretty prints that I'd usually be drawn to because this was for my Dad! The metal hardware (D rings and swivel hooks) was from U-Handbag, and I got the webbing and zip on Ebay.

The pattern is really well drafted and the instructions were clear and easy to follow. The bag came together much quicker than I thought it might (possibly due to the lack of need to make a muslin or adjust fit being as this was a bag rather than clothing!), and I think the finish looks quite professional - my Dad did have to check that I'd made it rather than bought it for him so it must look good! I got slightly confused about attaching the main strap through the D rings (I can't remember how exactly now because it was a while ago!), but soon realised what I was doing wrong when I enlarged the photos of the finished bag on my computer. 

I didn't make any changes to the pattern or to the recommendations in the instructions - why would I when they all worked so well? I considered machine stitching the lining to the main bag instead of hand stitching as stated in the instructions, but in the end I stuck with hand stitching and I think I've ended up with a much tidier finish than I would have got with my machine and it's perfectly sturdy.

I tried to do some pattern matching on the checked canvas - as you can see from the photo above this didn't quite work out on the curved edges at the ends of the bag, but I think I did quite a good job of making sure the pattern matched along either side of the zip.

The bag is quite roomy (I managed to fit 5 cushions in it to fill it up when I was taking these photos!) and would be perfect for a weekend away, or longer if you pack lighter than I do! The pattern also includes a toiletries bag and a travel pouch which I'm looking forward to making at some point - if they're as good as the duffle bag then it'd be silly not to!

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Shopper Bag from Sew!

Today is my sister's birthday so, given that she'll have opened her presents by now, I thought I'd show you one of the things I made for her - a cute little shoulder bag...

I used the Shopper Bag pattern from Sew! by Cath Kidston, which was actually the book that was responsible for getting me into sewing (I always enjoyed making things and had been talking about possibly buying a sewing machine for ages, so my Mum bought me the book for Christmas a couple of years ago to encourage me to stop talking about it and actually do it!). I hadn't made anything from the book for a while, but I remembered the bag patterns and thought that this one would be just right for what I had in mind.

The material was from the remnants bin in John Lewis a few months ago (my sister was with me at the time and said it would make a nice bag, so I decided there and then to keep this for her birthday present) and I had just enough to make the bag and the strap. The lining is a light blue chambray, which was also in the remnants bin at the same time - some good finds that day!

The book says to use webbing for the strap, which I probably would have preferred, but I couldn't find any locally (having been so convinced that I would find some that I left it too late to order online) so I improvised and interfaced the material and it worked out fine. 

The pattern is quite simple but effective and the bag is a good size for all the essentials, so a good choice to make for a present I think.

I'm now off to carry on with some more selfish sewing - see you soon!

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Camera bag

Like most bloggers, I love taking photos and so try to have my camera with me whenever I can. In the last couple of months this has resulted in various solutions of how to take a camera around whilst still having the essentials that I need for a day out, ranging from cutting down the essentials to the absolute bare minimum that I need and stuffing that in every spare bit of space in my camera bag to lugging around a massive bag with my camera bag and the rest of my contents of a normal handbag inside it. Sometimes these options are fine, but there's times when I just want a more simple solution that still looks good, so for a while now I've been coveting a Jo Totes camera bag. They look fantastic - just like a normal handbag but with padding for your camera and lots of convenient pockets for all the other bits and pieces you might want to have with you. Sadly they're a bit out of my price range for a bag at the moment, but one of them is definitely on the birthday/Christmas list (I just need to decide which one...) so my camera was going to stay in its current practical but not very pretty bag, but then I spotted this month's Sewing World magazine which caught my eye because it has a camera bag on it's cover. The solution! So I snapped it up and got to work.

There were quite a lot of pieces to cut out, interface and line with fusible fleecing so the preparation took quite a while but it was all fairly simple and easy to put the pieces together - helped by very clear instructions with photos of some of the slightly more complicated (still not very complicated!) steps which meant it was easy to know what you were meant to be doing. Here's my finished result...

And here's the back and inside - plenty of pockets:

The one change I did make was that I lengthened the strap - the one in the pattern seems to be for a shoulder bag but I prefer cross-body bags. I just measured the strap of a bag that I already own and used that for the length measurement, easy peasy!

Possibly the trickiest bit was attaching the press fasteners - it was the first time I'd used them and it took me a while to realise how useless the instructions that came with mine were. A quick google search sorted things out though!

In the middle of construction I was wishing that I'd chosen a print with a more random pattern for the outer pockets or that I'd deliberately constructed it so that the checked print intentionally didn't match up (or that I was the kind of person who didn't care if it matched), but I'm pleased that I persevered and made sure that it all lined up.

It was a great way to use up some of my stash too, and all of the materials I used were either left over from other projects or bargain remnant bin/ebay finds, and the stripey lining was the back of a men's shirt that I bought for £1 in a charity shop! 

If anyone else is having similar camera bag dilemmas, get out and buy Sewing World magazine now - this issue is still in the shops at the moment, and there are lots of other pretty projects in there too!