Wednesday, April 9, 2008

I Made a Bag...

I feel like crap so my enthusiasm for writing this post is fairly low but I recall that earlier today I couldn't wait...so here goes!

Its time for cleaning out closets and I've come across dozens of t-shirts I haven't worn in years but that I just can't part with. Cool concert shirts, great souvenir shirts, best of all, my pep band shirts from high school...I guess I'm more sentimental than I thought. All the cool crafty kids are doing neat stuff with old shirts so I decided to seperate my long unworn tees into those that could be "re-purposed" and kept around in some functional way and those that should ultimately end up in the third world as many do....

Some time ago, Special K talked about reusable bags and pointed out a pattern for a fabric bag that she wanted to try; I agreed, it has great potential. I've looked at LOTS of tutorials, patterns, etc on the web for bag making and kind of made a mash-up of several, but principally Supafine's bag linked above is what I used for this REM t-shirt bag:

I'm not a big fan of the way that t-shirt bags stretch and stretch and stretch. The lining on Supafine's bag took care of that nicely and also to makes the bag more sturdy (and lovely) but I didn't have any fabric handy that I wanted to use so resourceful girl that I am, I remembered a pile of long unused pillow cases that are hanging around for god knows what. Off to the races!

I only wish I'd had some cool fabric with an orange stripe or something for the lining. But I always liked this 1995 REM Monster tour shirt and remember the evening at Hershey Park with Rob quite well.

I've had my sewing maching fired up a good bit lately trying to complete the window coverings I began in the fall and as boredom set in, I've begun daydreaming of cool fabric bags...bags for library books (summer is coming!), bags for knitting club, bags for the pool (summer is coming!), just...bags. So, in order to keep myself sewing the window coverings, I negotiated some very cool fabric as my reward. These will be used to make bags. For whatever or whomever I so choose.

Mira:

Sew Mama Sew has the coolest fabrics around. I've no idea how I'll end up pairing these selections for bag-making but I think they'll be awesome.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saved all of Lyman's T-shirts from his Aloha Kindergarten one on up through High School. I always thought I would have someone make a T-shirt quilt to give him as a wedding present. That never happened, of course, and they are still in a tub in my garage. I never thought about doing anything else with them. Maybe now I'll just start sending them to Milo as he grows. I'm sure he'll love vintage just like the rest of us. LYFE Milo's Nona

Special K said...

Oooh - I like the idea of your lined t-shirt bag much better than Martha's - it looks SO great! Also love the fabrics you picked out for future bags.

KHM said...

Thanks! Its actually the one you pointed out months ago with very insignificant modifications! Martha's bag is a good idea but not very attractive... I was done start to finish in less than an hour!

Those fabrics make me crazy! I can't wait for them to arrive! I'm going to make them into ICoE bags like yours (using supafine's pattern) but I'm thinking I might use coordinated ribbons rather than velcro..? And maybe add a third layer of lining to the top portion of the bag to make sure they can handle heavy loads?

KHM said...

Donna, you should take those shirts to a quilter. It would make a great wall hanging or blanket---you've been such a diligent Mommy keeping them...it would be a waste to not turn them into a memento.

If you find someone to piece it, I would happily quilt it.

LYFE---

Marietta said...

i love your bag! and the lining is smart. I have tshirt bags for grocery shopping but they stretch like CRAAAAAAAAZY! i mean, it is ridiculous
i might take old concert tshirts and do what you do did - so smart