After sewing a couple of T-shirts (which turned out sort of okay), some bowl cozies (which turned out mostly okay), and a few knot bags to use for sewing projects (also mostly okay), I decided to try to make a bag. A pencil pouch to be specific.
Clothes after be harder than a pouch, right?
The pattern was labeled beginner. How hard could it be? Well, my friends, you're about to find out. I think this is going to be a two-part story, too.
One of the early steps is to put the zipper into the zipper tabs. It said to cut 1/2 inch of the zipper away, but I didn't see any reason to do that, so I didn't. The zipper comes with these loose ends, and that looked as if what the pattern designer was going for, so it's already there.
So I glued them in with fabric glue as instructed.
I had the perfect zipper for the fabric. Purple and blue. I glued it in, clipped it in place as instructed, and waited for it to dry.
While I waited, I attached the fusible interfacing to the lining and the fusible foam to the exterior of the pouch. That went surprisingly well. Maybe this bag was going to be easy.
And then I ran into my first issue.
After sewing the tabs to the zipper, I discovered that the zipper was too long for the pouch. I guess I did need to cut away that section of the zipper after all. I weighed my options: Rip out all the seams and manage to work the zipper free from the glue or adjust the pattern, cut out new pieces, and make a longer bag.
I opted for the second choice.
I tried to use the first fabric because it's more my style than flowers, but I didn't have enough. Flowers. At least they're big, interesting flowers. And purple. You can see the zipper is the correct size for the bag now.
I clipped it to my bag. And realized I'd never sewn a zipper before and didn't know what to do. I did have a zipper foot that came with the sewing machine, but it was weird, hooking to the side, and I didn't care for it real well.
Sewing commenced. I wasn't paying attention to where I was and I hit one of the clips, breaking the needle. %#$%^ I'd never done that before. Luckily, I had an entire pack of denim needles and put in a new one. Sewing recommenced.
I ordered a different style zipper foot, one that matched what I'd seen used online in the tutorial videos I watched. I didn't realize it would require removing the apparatus which held the foot and attaching the foot directly to the piece that comes down, but I did that too.
And the zipper was in. I sewed crappy as hell, but I was not ripping out seams and starting over. This would have to be good enough.
Tune in on Thursday for the thrilling conclusion.
