A Dearth of Zippers

I love bags.  Small bags.  Big bags.  Anything with bright fun colors, in cute little shapes, actually pretty much anything made of fabric that I can put something in and carry it around.

When I got my Tom Bihn bag, I didn't spring for many of their attachable organizers, I figured I would wait and see how I was going to use the bag before I purchased anything else.  Then I ran across a cute little bag on Etsy and saw that the seller had included a hook that I could use to secure that bag into my Tom Bihn bag and VOILA  - an obsession was born.

I took a mental health day today and since I am right on track with my pi shawl (340 down, 200 more stitches to go!) I decided to try some tutorials I found online.

I started with this fabulous tutorial for a box bag.  The one thing about using free tutorials from blogs is that they tend not to be quite as clear as purchased directions, this one is great but I couldn't figure out what the final size was supposed to be.  I had decided I wanted to make a very small bag, just big enough for one carry along sock sans mate, small and portable for our upcoming trip, so I made an executive decision based on the size zippers I had laying around and aimed small.

 

Would you believe it, it worked!  And instead of a plain zipper pull I put a D-ring on the pull so I can hook it into my Tom Bihn bag on the key holder.

 

I wasn't that thrilled with my first zipper attempt, but I think I did a better job with the second one.  Instead of making another bag in the same style, because that would be just nutty, to make another bag once I figured out how to do it..., I wanted to make a travel make up bag because mine died and y'know, we have that trip coming up.

Magazine shown for size.  It ended up a little bigger than I envisioned, there was another guessing of measurements on my part because I wanted to make it fatter on the bottom than the pattern stated, but bigger is better than smaller, right?

 

I used the very helpful instructions found here for this one.

I love the exterior fabric on this one, I may make a larger box bag with it, more like sweater sized, or big enough to hold a sweater until it gets to big to carry around, if that makes any sense.  I like the ones with zippers better than the draw string bags (which I have oodles of) because they are neater and more compact to carry in my bag, for around the house the draw string bags still work just fine. 

I also found a tutorial for a kindle case which looks pretty easy, but I'm not sure why I would need one.  Even given that I don't need a kindle case (because I have a cover that came with it as a gift), I still want to make one.  It's not that I don't like my current cover, I do, it's leather so it smells nice and it folds open like a book, it's all good, but I could MAKE one, in whatever fabric I wanted!  It doesn't make any sense, but I suppose that's why we call them obsessions.

I came to a grinding halt in my bag making efforts because all my zippers where either 7" or 9", for the larger box bags you need either a 12" or a 16" zipper.  I will have to make a trip to the one store I know of in the city that carries zippers or wait for a free shipping coupon from Joann's, that would work too, either way, no more bags for me for now.  Sigh.

Comments

[Jennygirl]

The material is cute and bags look good. Plus that work which is important!

[Jocelyn]

An obsession thwarted! Sigh, indeed. I can see why you're obsessed, though -- those bags are wonderful. I particularly love the box one, it's just perfect for socks. I have GOT to wrap my head around learning to sew!

[heather]

Just printed out a few box bag tutorials myself. i was inspired after my Bernina cozy success!

[Toni S]

They look great!!!!!!!!!!!

[Northmoon]

I love that little bag! I've been using a ziplock bag to carry my sock knitting around, but I think I need to make a box bag immediately.

Regarding the 'grinding halt' - You could always make the bags up to the stage where you install the zipper, then finish a bunch at once when you get the zips. (As you can tell, I hate to be thwarted in my obsessions!)

[Northmoon]

Just looked at the tutorial and the zipper has to go in pretty early in the process so there goes that idea.