Selfless Sewing: Tote Bag for Mom

Although the Selfish Seamstress *purports* to be selfish, she actually sews for other people all the time.  I, dear readers, am truly entirely selfish--to the point where it's actually almost a character flaw.  There are only a very few people for whom I make an exception, and my mom is at the top of the list.

You may recall that last year I made her a jacket. This year was a tote bag.  I got the quilted faux suede in a Fabric Mart bundle and was stumped as to what to do with it when it arrived.  It was not my style, but at the same time it is high quality fabric, and with the pre-quilting saved an interfacing step.  It finally dawned on me that purple is my mom's favorite color and that she might like a bag.  Perfect!

The bag is made with two rectangular sides and then a long one-piece gusset.  The dimensions below include 1/2 inch seam allowances.

Front and back:  16 wide x 14 tall
Gusset:  42 long by 6 wide
Handles:  5 1/2 wide by 49 long for a 22 inch drop (my mom is petite like me).



I used fusible fleece to give the bottom some structure. I wanted the fleece to go up the gusset sides about an inch so the bag wouldn't just flop over the bottom.

I started by sewing the gusset to the front and back along the bottom edge, catching the fleece in the stitch line.

Then I sewed from a couple inches up the side down to the corner, this time not catching the fleece in the stitch line.

Next, trim the fleece seam allowance close to the stitching, continuing the trim job into the unsewn part that goes up the side.



Finally, I did a little quilting to keep the fleece in place.  It was really easy with this fabric, I just sewed along the lines that were already there on the bottom.  Then I sewed along the short edges of the fleece to keep them in place going up the side.  Once this was all done, I sewed the side seams up the rest of the way.






The most important part of a bag is, of course, all the pockets!  I made a water bottle pocket for the inside of the bag, to keep the bottle upright and easy to pull out.  I cut a piece of lining 9 inches wide by 21 inches long and folded it in half the long way.  Then I folded it along the two lower corners and sewed gusset darts 1.5 inches from the corner.







Then I marked where the one-piece gusset would turn the corner from the bottom to the side, and sewed the bottom edge of the water bottle pocket just above that marking.  In the photo, the top of the gusset is going off to the left and you can see the water bottle pocket's darts on what will be the inside of the pocket.








Next, fold the pocket up from the stitchline, enclosing it, and pin the sides of the pocket to the sides of the gusset.  Baste in place and then catch in the stitching when sewing the gusset to the front and back pieces of the lining.









And here's how it operates!  I think that 9 inches was a little too wide for a small water bottle, but if you favor larger water bottles or 20 oz soda bottles it is probably right.






The front and back of the lining have a large zippered pocket, and a pocket for holding a phone and other sundries.  Mom crochets so I wanted to make sure the appliqued pocket would be deep enough to hold a crochet hook.  I cut it 10 inches tall by 9 inches wide, interfaced for stability, and folded in half along the 10 inch dimension.







I sewed the lining to the bag by leaving an opening in the bottom of the lining for turning and stitching right sides together along the top edge.  The handles are sewn along the entire length of the purse and caught in the bottom gusset stitching.  I left the top inch unsewn for joining the bag and lining together.  Once they were joined I continued the topstitching from where it ended on the body of the bag all the way across the handle to the other side of the bag.






I got a new camera in the Fall and hadn't tried out the video feature, so I made a video showing a little bit of a shortcut in closing the opening left in the lining for turning.







The bag also has pockets on the front and back of the outside.  The front one is smaller, sized to fit her Nexus 7 snugly.  The back one is larger, the whole width of the bag between the handles.  I wanted a closure for the back pocket.  I didn't want to use Velcro because it catches on everything.  I didn't want to use a magnetic snap in case she wanted to put her Nexus in that pocket (I am paranoid about electronics and magnets).  And I didn't want to use a regular snap because they can be too hard to open and close.

So I went for a shank button and an elastic loop.  I used a ponytail holder for the elastic.  I sewed the elastic into a square of the fabric and sewed the square in place.  Hopefully it won't be too hard to replace if it wears out!  I'm not in love with that particular button, but it was the best I had in stash and my gift was already late.

And here is the finished front (and back).  When I told my mom I wanted to make her a bag, she got excited and had her friend show me the bag that the friend's daughter had made.  The daughter had embroidered the friend's name on it and my mom really seemed to like that feature.

I don't have an embroidery machine and the fabric was impossible to mark on--anything that actually made a mark left a permanent marking.  Thank goodness the fabric had lines to give me some way to make proportional letters!  I marked it the best I could and then stitched it with a satin stitch on the machine.  So the name is not great close up, particularly the wonky "o."  Hopefully the effect with the whole bag isn't so terrible, though.

Mom loved her bag, so that's really all that counts!  I am not good with spatial relations and it turned out way bigger than I meant for it to be, so there may be a mini version in the offing at some point...

All photos are here.

Sewing for Other People: My Mom

When I went to visit my family over the holidays I brought two pairs of jeans and a bunch of tops. I'm working on traveling light (and my suitcase was full of gifts). One of the tops I brought was Knip Mode 4/08 #13, the fabulous gather front top. It is so fabulous that even my mom noticed it (she's not one for fashion) and asked for the pattern.

When I got home I called her for her measurements and started tracing out the pattern. But then I realized that she would never get around to making it for herself, so I better just make her one. I chose an aqua colored slinky from stash (I think I bought it from Fashion Fabrics Club 2 or 3 years ago). Then I realized that she probably didn't have anything to wear with the top so I found a coordinating wool plaid from The Carol Collection. Purple is her favorite color and she seems to like plaid skirts. I wanted a pattern that had only side seams to minimize plaid matching and with some pleats for roominess. BWOF 10-08-103 was perfect. Here it is!



She is allegedly going to get my dad to take a picture of her in the outfit and email it to me, but they have to learn several technologies before this can happen and I didn't want to wait. The top is my only contribution to the stash contest so I wanted to go ahead and post it and do the review!

I made the top pretty much as before, which is basically right out of the envelope (or magazine, I suppose). Because slinky is heavy and prone to growth spurts I used twill tape on the shoulders. I also hand sewed the collar together for a couple inches at the front. My mom dresses quite conservatively and is self conscious about a scar at the base of her neck from having thyroid surgery while she was pregnant with me, so she doesn't like low necklines. As I recall, she doesn't like V necklines at all, but she had seen the shirt and knew it was a V so I figured it would be ok.

The skirt went together well and easily. The pleat arrows didn't really work for me. The front has two sets of pleats, one on either side of CF. Both sets are supposed to be arranged sort of as a center extroverted pleat (opposite of inverted, I'm not sure what the real name is) with a pleat on either side facing in toward it. It didn't really look right so I had all the front pleats facing toward the closest side. The back pleats are supposed to be the same extroverted pleat with other pleats radiating but it would have poofed over her rear end (we are pretty much the exact same shape, just in different sizes), so I changed that to an inverted pleat with overlapping side pleats facing toward CB, as you can see here.

I really like BWOF's wide waistband for skirts. They have a nice contour, which is flattering. My tip is that where there are similar shaped waistband pieces, I mark them with chalk on the inside. In the photo you can see that I've written "FF" and "BF" for front facing and back facing. The back and front were marked with F and B. This saves a lot of unnecessary trouble.

I'm pretty proud of how well I matched plaid at the zipper/side seam. To get the skirt/waistband seam to line up perfectly, I machine stitched one side of the zipper and then hand-basted the other side in. As you can see, I cut the waistband on the cross grain after seeing how bad it looked to have a plaid waistband cut on grain in BWOF 09-2007-116 (I've since ripped the waistband out and inserted one on the cross-grain, just haven't taken pictures)

I kept the outfit a secret so she didn't know what was coming when she got a package from me. She said she was so excited that she cried, and when I talked to my dad later that week he said that my mom was pulling out the outfit for anyone who would look at it and had already worn it. She assures me it fits but of course I have no idea as I haven't seen a picture! I will look for more projects to sew for her. She is right on the cusp of regular and plus Burda sizes, so I will have a chance to sew some of those great Burda plus patterns I am always so envious of in the magazine.

All photos of the top are here and the review is here. The skirt photos are here and the review is here, and here she is in the outfit!



So now apparently I do sew for other people. I have two more people to sew for as yesterday--Jet and Marvel are now big brother and sister to twin brothers Cash and Fox, born February 24!

Sewing for Other People: Baby Steps (literally)

When asked, I always flatly state, "I don't sew for other people." The end.

However, when contemplating holiday gifts for my family I was sort of at a loss. I usually make at least some token item for most people (though male personages are nearly impossible to make anything for unless you have Karen's shirt tailoring skills)--one year I made everyone fleece hats--but mostly buy gifts according to what everyone wants.

I am very blessed to be an aunt many times over. My sister has three boys (3, 8, and 10) and my brother has a son (3) and my only niece (2)...and will have two more little boys any day now!!!!! My sister's boys are old enough that homemade=bad in their minds; for them I have to wait a couple of decades and then homemade will be good again. At least that's the way it worked for me. I used to think we were SO PUT UPON that my mom made all our bread and we didn't get pre-sliced loaves from the store, and of course nowadays I make all my own bread.

Anyway, my brother's kids are still young enough to appreciate whatever gift you give them. My niece absolutely loves girly dresses. When they first watched Cinderella they almost had to turn off the movie because she got hysterically sad when the ugly stepsister's ruin Cinderalla's dress. They had to tell her that she gets a new one. For my niece's gift they made her a little dance stage with mirror and ballet barre in the playroom. My nephew is into kings and castles and so for his gift they turned the closet under the stairs into a castle.

Both of these are perfect for sewn gifts! I asked my sister-in-law (trivia: when I moved from Texas to DC my sil rode with me because she wanted to see some of the country; we had so much fun on our road trip!) for their measurements and then started brainstorming.

For Marvel (my niece), I decided on a girly peasant top and matching skirt, a tutu, and a scarf/boa out of a funky faux fur. She's too small for BWOF's kid's patterns. I don't want to hurry her up, but I'll be excited when she gets into their size range!

Since I didn't have any patterns for her I drafted a simple peasant top with cut-on sleeves based on her measurements. I added a neck binding/elastic casing and elastic casing bands around the sleeves about three inches from the hem in the skirt fabric. I loved being able to use these crazy fabrics from my stash. The skirt fabric is leftover from one of my perennial favorite skirts that I made years and years ago while I was still in law school (I graduated in '01, if we're counting). I used the sequined butterfly fabric for my Carnaval costume several years ago. I think they look so cute together. You can see that I put a little rick rack bow on the front of the blouse so it would be easy to tell which side is front and which is back (I cut the neckline slightly lower in the front for wearing comfort). I don't have any photos of the tutu--it was just a couple layers of tulle sewn around an elastic waistband.

For my nephew I wanted to make a dress up item and a clothes item. For dress up, he had to have a king robe to wear in his castle! This was the only fabric I had to buy; everything else for both of them was from deep stash (at least two years old). I used a purple moleskin from Joann and trimmed it with leftover faux fur from my Down With Love project. I based it on Simplicity 2738, a pajama pattern. I cut it a couple sizes too large, and cut the front on the fold, adding some ease. It has slits on the sides for walking ease and a big "J" for "Jet." Plane tickets were so expensive when I was buying for the holidays that I ended up with a long layover; I sewed all the trims onto Jet's king robe by hand during the layover. I also made the crown out of tissue lame, with plastic needlepoint canvas for the headband (I passed my plastic needlepoint canvas tip on to Cidell for her Weekender bag; I've been using it for purse bottoms for years).

For his regular clothes, I was inspired by the other thing besides kings and castles that he loves: Spiderman. I bought some netting spiderweb on Joann's clearance after Halloween several years ago with the idea of maybe making some simple Halloween costumes to sell on eBay, but never got around to doing so. I realized that I could combine it with a red silky poly remnant wrapped around my exchange gift at PR Weekend 2006 for a really awesome Spiderman shirt. I used the same Simplicity 2738 pajama pattern; instead of using a facing I used self-bias tape at the neck. You can't see all the details in the action shot (taken in Marvel's "dance studio"); here's a photo of the shirt flat.

All of my photos are here. My sister-in-law's set of photos has more shots.

Making kids' clothes turns out to be pretty easy and fun. They're little so they take less time, and they don't need all the details adult clothes need. Plus, I could just finish all the hems with the serger!

So I have added a caveat to "I don't sew for other people."

I will sew for other people (1) whom I love dearly and (2) who will wear whatever is put in front of them. That pretty much limits it to young children who are related to me and my mom. More on the latter later this week!

How to Make a Wine Gift Bag

When Cidell and I ordered our tie silk from Fabric Mart, most of the silks were quite lovely but we got one real dog, a wine cork print. Cidell was going to use it for muslins, but when I realized it would be perfect for making wine gift bags she handed it off to me. On Saturday I had a holiday party to go to. I don't have a car and take the metro everywhere. When I'm bringing a host(ess) gift of a bottle of wine I don't want to just carry a bottle of wine around the city for all to see so I can either carry a big purse or put it in a bag of some sort. I didn't want to wear a giant handbag with my festive outfit (I wore a completely disastrous velvet skirt I will shamefacedly reveal later in the week), so it was time to bust out the tie silk and make a quickie wine bag. Last year I posted a tutorial for a wine gift bag with a pocket. This is the completely simple, no-frills wine gift bag.

Start by cutting a piece of fabric 12 inches wide and 16 inches long. This will make a gift bag for a standard size bottle of wine. If you get a larger bottle or one with an unusual shape, you'll need to adjust your starting size to accommodate.

Next, sew down the long (16 inch) side with a 1/4 inch seam allowance (run the edge of your foot along the edge of the fabric); pivot at the bottom and sew the bottom edge with a 1/4" seam allowance as well. Finish your edges with a serger or zigzag if your fabric will ravel. Then finish the top. I had hoped to use the selvage here as the finished top edge but it wasn't a sturdy selvage. Since I have a serger I just serged along the top edge before sewing the side seam. If you don't have a serger and can't use the finished selvage as the top, you can zigzag along the top and turn under in a narrow hem.

Now you're going to mark the gussets. You can easily skip this part, but I think it makes the bag look a little nicer. Mark the center of the bottom, and two inches up from the bottom on each side. You will sew between these markings, as indicated by the white lines in the photograph. This gives the bottom of the bag a more rounded shape so no corners are sticking out when the bottle is inserted and standing up. You can trim off the gusset corners, but I didn't.

The last thing to do is sew on a ribbon for tying it closed. First you need to mark your ribbon placement. Slip the bottle inside the bag and mark the spot where the neck and shoulders of the bottle meet--where the bottle starts to slope out. If you have cut a 12x16 rectangle and have a standard bottle, this will be 5 inches from the top. Cut a ribbon long enough to tie in an attractive bow--here I cut 18 inch lengths. Slide your bag over your sewing machine's free arm and tack the ribbon at the marked spot using a short stitch length and a narrow zigzag.

And you're done! You can check out all the photos here. Now which guest would you rather be?

A Wine Gift Bag with Pocket

The Sew Mama Sew blog did 30 days of handmade gifts in November, links to all kinds of tutorials and gift ideas for the sewist (here's the compiled list). It was a really fun read and there were lots of ideas that sparked my interest. I especially appreciated all the generous people who have posted tutorials. So when I found myself needing to create a wine bag, I thought I should spread the wealth.

After law school I clerked for a judge (two judges, actually) and he recently celebrated his 20th year on the bench. I didn't want to get him any tchotchkes or dust collectors, so I figured a nice bottle of wine is always appreciated. This occasion called for heartfelt words, not a scrawled signature on one of those little cards with a punchy hole threaded through a drawstring, so I puzzled a bit about how to attach a real card to a wine bag. I thought of punching a hole in it, but that's just not classy. Then I thought of a pocket. Of course!

This method works only with fabric that is attractive on both the right and the wrong side. Jacquard was an easy choice here.

Start by measuring your wine bottle against the fabric. I ended up with a rectangle 24" long and 13" wide. This should work for any standard bottle of wine. If you have champagne or a magnum, you'll need to do custom sizing. My pocket ended up a little tall, so I could have shaved an inch or two off that, but it was totally fine.


Next, fold up what will be the pocket based on your bottle size. Mine was 9 1/2 inches from the raw edge of what would eventually be the pocket.


Mark the pocket foldline.


Turn the pocket and top edges under. I did about 3/4 of an inch, and double folded them to hide the raw edges. They need to be hemmed on the opposite sides from one another--the pocket toward the wrong side and the top toward the right side (or vice versa--it doesn't really matter).


Now stitch along the pocket foldline you previously marked, with the finished pocket edge wrong side out.


Once you've stitched the foldline, you need to sew the side seam. I did a French seam so it would look all nice. To do so, fold the pocket up along the seamline, wrong sides together (so the bag looks as it will when finished). Make a narrow seam along the side, and finish with a zigzag. Next time I make this bag, I will sew a ribbon into the side seam at this point for tying around the neck of the wine bottle. I had a hard time keeping the ribbon in place on the finished gift.


To complete the French seam, turn the bag wrong side out and stitch the side seam again, encasing the raw edges of the first seam.


Turn the bag right side out and voila! Slip in your wine bottle, tie with a ribbon, and tuck your card or gift into the pocket. I was worried that having the pocket seam along the bottom might make the whole thing unsteady, but even with my thick jacquard the wine bottle stood up just fine.


If you want to make a little gift to go with the wine, it's easy to make little wine charms with ring-sized memory wire and beads. Memory wire is really hard on cutters, so use old ones if you have them.