Baste, Pin, Baste - Or how I learned to stop worrying and love zips
I suppose that I’m either lucky or stupid but I don’t have a fear of zips, and never have. Practically the first thing I made was a cushion cover with a zip. I didn’t know that it was supposed to difficult and therefore it wasn’t – well, eventually. The method that I ended up with for cushions is very similar to the one for inserting the zip for the Sophia, and so step 8 was one I was looking forward to.
The secret with zips is all about stability. They have a habit of flopping about all over like fish gasping for breath, and even when you pin it down everything still moves – the fabric gapes, the zip slips, and before you know it you’ve been pinning and re-pinning for several hours and feel no closer to actually putting your foot down.
The biggest hand you can give yourself is to baste the two pieces of fabric together to create a seam, whenever possible: a zip is simply a seam that opens after all. You can then easily centre the zip onto the seam and pin it in place. Then crucially, you hand baste it in place. I’ve tried doing without, but believe me there is no short cut to hand basting for the neatest possible result, plus it has the added bonus of producing the least swearing from the sewing room…
Where the Butler method differs is in dealing with the zip tab, and I think I’ll adopt this wherever possible. Instead of keeping the fabric in the machine, and lifting the foot to tease the tab out of the way, she advises that you take it out, remove some of the seam basting and move the zip tab. Then onto take two – finish off the top end of the zip, easily and without tears.
All that’s left is to open up the basting, tidy up and admire your perfect zip. Now, if only the rest of it would go so easily…
I must confess that lately my sewing mojo has left me, which is partly why this bag is taking so long. I don’t know why, but I haven’t been truly inspired to sit down and cut, sew and play. Does this happen to everyone? I hope it comes back soon.
And if you were wondering about the cats, and I’m sure you’ve done little else, they are getting on better, although the very early morning chase growl hiss is still going on, so I’m still not sleeping well. I invested in a Feliway diffuser which arrived yesterday and there’s been rapid progress to include a bit of head rubbing, so if you do intend to introduce a new kitten to an older cat I’d recommend investing in it before you bring the kitten back.
And now, because it’s late and I’m tired, I’m going to sit back and watch my favourite movie about writing, Wonder Boys, adapted perfectly from the book of the same name.
Piping Heaven...
Or piping hell? Pinning it to the main panel was fairly straightforward, although I could tell that it didn’t much like the curves. The pattern tells you to trim the excess before you sew, but I wasn’t sure this was the best idea, especially considering my use of non biased casing for the cord, so I left it dangling and only cut when I’d finished sewing.
And into the machine we go. The trick with attaching the piping is to sew to the left of the original line you made when you made the piping. This may well be the moment where you find yourself wishing you’d made it perhaps a couple of millimetres to the right. But take a deep breath and squeeze it round. Because the piece is mostly curved, I took it fairly slowly and tried not to rush.
There are a few wobbles here that I could be happier with, but then I’m not very happy with the fact that my fabric is so off centre. I am pleased with the way the piping looks againts to fabric though, so next time I’ll definitely contrast texture as well as colour for the piping.
And then the bottom panel. With corners. Now if only I’d read the instructions instead of just looking at the picture. Do not do as I did, and pin the piping all the way round, like the picture above. It made my life just that bit harder, and my corners more rounded. Instead, according to the written instructions you should sew the piping up to half an inch from the end and only then clip and turn the corner.
It’s done, and it’s ok, but it’s certainly not as neat as I’d like. That’s probably a combination of my fabric choices and my increasing frustration at the same. Lessons to learn, self: don’t sew with a heavy heart. It is what it is, and you never know how it will turn out in the end.
Steps 5 & 6
Yes, according to the pattern that’s where we are. Step five is simply sewing the handles together, so I’ve saved you the photos of me squinting over my sewing machine.
Step 6 is attaching them to the main panel. And it’s here I realise that my centering wasn’t quite as accurate as I thought, so the handles will be slightly off. Never mind – this is exactly the reason I’m making myself one of these first. (Amazing what defects I will put up with when it’s for me.) The other thing is that, although I love this velvet, with the fleece and interfacing on the back, plus the folded over handles, it’s getting a bit bulky, and needs a bit of a shove to get it moving. I think next time a home dec weight will be easier to work with, especially considering the limits of my machine.
Isn’t it amazing what a bit of sewing can do? All I’ve done is attach the handles and sew this strengthening cross and suddenly I can see how the bag will be when it’s finished.
Final Preparations
After a Saturday full of London boats, and food at Wagamama and going to see No Country for Old Men, Sunday turned itself into a perfect crafting day.
On the Sophia bag I only had to do the final preparations of the fabric – I bet you can’t wait for something to actually happen.
Everything went smoothly, until I began to attach the fleece. You might remember that I only have double-sided fusible fleece, and I decided it was worth trying a tip from Lova, who used a sheet of paper to shield the other sticky side. It would have been nice not to have to cut more interfacing, but sadly half of the fleece came away when I pulled back the paper, firmly welded to its surface. Back to the interfacing then…
Then all I had left to do was a little bit of trimming – I’m never particular about cutting my interfacing straight, so it makes the sewing easier if I trim now. Finally I’m ready to sew…
And after that I had to put it down to make a different bag for my mum – no photos since it still gets dark at 4.30pm – because I’m off on a day trip to see her on Tuesday. Wooo! Train ride! All by myself! I’m so looking forward to it – seven hours of nothing to do but sit down and read books…
You say cording, I say piping
I went out into the tipping rain yesterday for something to make piping from, and gravitated to V V Rouleaux, thinking I would pick up some of their piping tape and save myself a whole heap of trouble. It wouldn’t have been very interesting for you though, would it? Perhaps that’s why there were only four colours available, and none of them any good. So I bought this splendid satin ribbon instead, even though I knew it would be slippery to work with, and to be honest, it’s not bias cut so I’m really asking for trouble later, and may end up having to unpick and do this all again with something more suitable.
The things I do for you…Although it’s my bag, so technically it’s for me. I’ll call it a learning experience.
First thing first, measure out your cord – you need 108” or 3 yards, and fold it inside the ribbon, pinning as you go. This will take longer than you think because of the slippery nature of the ribbon – have a nice song on to hum along to so you won’t get cross.
Attach your zipper foot to your machine, and sew the cord into the ribbon by sewing a single line of straight stitch. You want to sew close enough so that the cord doesn’t start to slide out and can’t move around too much, but don’t sew right up to the cord. You don’t want a tight fit yet – you’ll do that when you attach it to the bag and you don’t want to see any stitching on the finished bag.
And here is the finished result – neat (mostly) and ready to attach. If you’re eager to know how to attach it then see Lisa’s whole and unabridged piping tutorial
In the meantime I’ll just admire how nice this looks next to the fabric, while worrying about possible screw ups when I come to finally sew it on.
Lining. How much?!
All the work for the week is finished (hoorah!) and I can get back to being my usual aimless flit from this to that. I think I always have been an aimless flit, which is probably why I have so many wips in a special box in my cupboard.
In an effort to not add this I decided to cut the lining before my dinner guests arrive (I guess I should really be cooking…). I’ve been bothered ever since I saw on the pattern that it need more fabric than the exterior – 1 and 5/8 yd – and seeing how much fabric I had left over from that I was feeling fairly sceptical that the bag would turn out to be a tardis.
But first things first, I had a read through about the pockets and how to attach them to the lining, and it seems like a very good idea to do the pockets in a contrasting fabric to add a bit of life to the inside. I had a little look through my stash and came up with something perfect:
I only had half a yard of the damask pattern, which came from Purl. It’s by Anna Griffin for Windham, part of the ‘Dorothy’ line and it’s for sale here, or if you want something similar from the UK Lisa has a nice damask here. I’m such a fan of this kind of pattern at the moment. Anyhoo –
This is all I had left from my half yard after I’d cut the four pocket panels. I considered briefly making the false bottom cover out of it, but I think there might be enough here for a little cosmetic bag or purse so I’ve set it aside. Like I’ve set aside a hundred other small scraps and just get them out to gaze at.
The main part of the lining is all in unbleached cotton, which I always seem to have stacks of. In the interests of my experiment I measured the length of the bit I used and it came out at 57”, which my dodgy maths makes just over 1.5 yards.
And this, dear readers, is what I was left with:
Helpfully sat on by Miss Charlie, and no – not a sign of David Tennant. The bit that was completely untouched at the end measured just over 18”, and I think there’s certainly enough room to squeeze the pocket panels on.
Which means that you could more than likely do the lining out of a yard if you’re clever with your placement, but perhaps add an extra quarter or eighth if you want to be safe. Of course you’ll need more if you’re doing pattern matching but if the fabric is plain there’s little point in having an extra half yard floating around.
And for us Europeans who buy in metres I think a metre will suffice, given the extra 9cm we get versus the yard.
Naturally, ignoring the suggested layout is a personal choice, and if you want to follow the pattern then by all means don’t heed my penny pinching ways in the slightest.
The Button Jar Method
First of all, hello to anyone who’s here from U-Handblog – it’s so nice of Lisa to post about my ‘progress’, although in the last couple of days, it’s been hampered by having other work to do.
However daunting the whole bag might be, it gets easier if you break it into little tasks. I have one of those family diaries, with five blocks for each day, and I try to write some small task into each block, like ‘sew handles’ or ‘blog entry’. That way if I tick them off I’ll have made a bit of progress, instead of being overwhelmed because I don’t have six solid hours to sew in.
My next sophia bag task was ‘cut interfacing’. There’s a lot of cutting going on with this bag but interfacing is something you can’t ignore. I don’t have much time today so I turned to my trusty friend the button jar to help me.
I hate pinning and unpinning, and I figure that for interfacing it doesn’t much matter how precise your cutting is. Either you trim the excess, or any wobbles are inside the seams. Hopefully. Unless you wobble a lot. So much swifter to cut four top pieces on the fold this way, once again using the cut bottom edge of one piece as the top of the next.
The next task would be to ‘cut fleece’, and having a quick read through of the instructions I found that you’re meant to have a sandwich that goes ‘exterior fabric, interfacing, fusible fleece’. End. But my fleece is fusible on both sides, so I guess my next task more properly reads ‘cut fleece and more interfacing’, unless I want to fuse the whole thing to my ironing board. I could buy some single sided I suppose but I want to make use of what I have and not shop for the sake of it*.
*This is a lie. I love to shop for the sake of it, but it’s just been Christmas and the credit card must. stay. inside. the purse.
Hopefully your projects are proceeding faster than mine. Any and all time-saving tips are very gratefully received…
First steps with a Bag Pattern - cutting out
(Easy access to the project here: Sophia Carry All)
Following on from Lisa’s post about designing bags, I thought I’d follow my own particular process of making a bag from a commercial pattern, just to see what I learn.
The very first bag I tried to make was a self-drafted pattern, for a messenger bag that could hold A4 (this is something of a theme with me) and although it was good it wasn’t great. I’ve self drafted other bags since, and recently I’ve decided that I’d like to try to make another messenger, but with the benefit of actually having some bag-making experience. This Sophia bag is something I want to make for myself (for a change :) so here we go.
First things first: trace out the pattern pieces and cut them out. I think it’s good practice not to cut your original pattern: should your scissors or cutter ever slip or slide while you’re cutting then you won’t ruin the original pattern piece. Tracing tissue is cheap – patterns are not.
And here they are, all seven of them:
You’ll notice that most of them are simply rectangles or squares. This is why I love La Butler – she makes the construction and cutting out as simple as possible. Remember to mark onto your pieces which ones they are!
Next the trusty notebook: I make my own notes for all the bags I make, including my own designs, in this here notebook. That way any problems I come across won’t be problems the next time. As long as I remember to read the book. This is where I make a list of what I need to cut out of each material. I’m just doing the exterior fabric tonight so let’s begin with the main panel.
My problem is that the fabric is a lovely velvet from Moda. When it’s wrong side up you can’t see through it, but I want to centre my main panel on one of the floral patterns. Solution: take a long ruler or yardstick and line up one edge along the vertical line you want for the centre of the main panel.
Fold the fabric over the ruler and pin in place. Slide the ruler out carefully and pin on the pattern piece. Cut out and –
Ta da! Now repeat for the second panel.
What you might or might not have realised is that I am completely ignoring the suggested layout given in the pattern. There are two reasons. Firstly – thrift: when I made the Madison Bag I found I had a lot of fabric left over, but because I’d followed the layout a good swathe of it wasn’t large enough to do anything else with. Secondly – the self-bias: the pattern calls for making self-fabric bias strips to encase the cording. I am not convinced that this is the right solution with this fabric, so if I do decide not to use the remainder for the strips I’ll have enough left over in a large enough piece to do something with.
This is why, after checking the fabric over, I found that I had two nice pieces for the end panels from the fabric in between the gaps left by the main panels, which wouldn’t have found a use otherwise.
And so to the rest of the pieces, which are all cut on the fold. The pieces that will make the biggest inroad into your fabric are the handles. I turned the fabric around so that I was still using the same side I’d been cutting from. Cutting close to this top edge means that I keep more fabric ‘whole’. I work down the folded edge of the fabric withe each piece, using the bottom edge of one as the top edge of the next. This saves time (excellent, because I’m lazy) and also fabric (ditto, but because I’m thrifty).
And this is what I’m left with: lots of spare fabric. I think that if you are not going to need to make the bias you can definitely get away with a single yard. Sometimes bag making for me is making the most of what I’ve got, and then saving some for later.
So that’s the exterior fabric – now there’s just a mountain of interfacing, fleece and lining to do…
