To-Do Tuesday 1-26-16 | The Backgammon Bag

Oh, happy day! I had two finishes this past week and I am happy dancing all over the place! My first finish was the Grungy Windows quilt. I won’t be showing pictures of that today; I’ll write all about it in a Friday Finish post later this week. But, as requested, I did have the Mister take a picture of me while quilting. I never take good pictures, but this does give some perspective on the size of my sit-down quilting machine and the room I have to maneuver the quilt around. And there is A LOT of room, to be sure!

My second finish this week was the January Bag of the Month by Betz White: the Backgammon Bag.

I decided to use The Walking Dead fabric and red sparkle vinyl as the accent. This was not the bag to go mixing those kinds of fabrics together, but I loved the idea of the red sparkle vinyl as the accent so much that I was determined to make it work.

The most difficult areas to sew were where the vinyl was so thick. I did a lot of trimming down on it in the seam allowances. Especially on the vinyl points, and on the vinyl strap tabs. My walking foot machine really got a workout, and I learned quite a bit from my mistakes. I realized that I definitely need to bulk up the lighter fabrics with more interfacing so that when I do any top stitching I am not running across unevenness, like I did with the outer pockets. I added piping, which was not called for in the pattern, and I learned the hard way to make sure that the cord does not go into the seam allowance. Even an industrial walking foot will balk at having to go through 10 layers of fabric, 4 layers of interfacing (thankfully I cut the fusible fleece smaller than the seam allowance!), and 2 thicknesses of cording. I spent a goodly amount of time taking out 3/8″ of cord from within the seam allowances.

This was my first time inserting a twist lock, as well as making an adjustable strap. The twist lock is crooked, and hopefully my next attempt will go a little easier than this one went. As far as the adjustable strap, I can not believe I was so afraid to make one of these before now! It was much easier than I expected. Since the vinyl was 8 layers thick when folded over, I opted to use rivets to secure it rather than sew it. I could have spaced the rivets better, so that’s another area I need to work on in the future.

The only interior feature I made was the zippered pocket that the pattern called for. After the challenges of sewing with the vinyl I decided not to get fancy inside. The bag already has two pockets with magnetic closures on the outside of the bag; one on each side the full width of the bag. I remembered to sew my label into the bag. I have to say, I’m not entirely thrilled with the looks of these woven labels. The font feels like it’s 1989 and from a DOS screen. Blech.

Well, that was a busy week, but I have one more project to go before my January goals are complete. This week I’ll be making the Vivian Handbag by Swoon Patterns. This is a pattern I am hoping to make many more bags from for selling.

How did your week go?
Are you close to accomplishing your January goals?

This week’s To-Do list:

• Make Vivian Handbag

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