First Sewn Thing

Yes I did spill coffee on it almost immediately after making it.

I recently got a sewing machine second hand off eBay - it's a Singer Talent. If I take to sewing maybe at some point I'll get a Singer or Janome heavy duty machine, because I foresee that I'll be mainly interested in sewing with heavy fabrics for things like jackets, trousers and so on.

To get used to using the machine I decided to sew something simple to start with, so I decided on a tote bag. A plain rectangular tote bag seemed like it would be too easy though, so I decided to make one with long straps and a pocket. The pocket design and general process was from this video tutorial from Glory Allen, and I made it with some pretty overpriced white canvas.

I started out by matching the size to a tote bag that was already in the house and then adding a bit, because I wanted a bigger bag and I knew that I wanted to fold the bag into a cuboid in the end (rather than having the simplest possible shape of two flat pieces of fabric joined to each other). In the end, I think I should have gone even bigger still. The bag I've ended up with is a small but still useable size. 

The pocket was my first challenge with the inside-out thinking that sewing requires. The pocket is made of three pieces of fabric: one each for the front and back faces of the pocket, and another for a decorative detail. These pieces of fabric are each attached to the outside of the bag and then flipped through a slash in the bag to end up on the inside, before the separate front and back faces of the pocket are attached to each other. It took me a bit of time and a few mistakes to get it straight in my head which piece of the pocket to attach above and below the slash, because it wasn't totally clear in the video. 

For the straps, I knew I wanted to be able to carry the bag sling style across my body. I worked out what length would be required for this, using a tape measure as a stand in for a strap. It ended up needing a much greater length than I expected. Second sewing lesson - there's more fabric in stuff than you imagine. 

These long straps meant needing long, even creases in the fabric, and to be honest that was easier to achieve than I would have thought. I think this might be a fair bit harder with a stretchy fabric, but with this rigid canvas it was easy to "finger press" (as sewists seem to say) an initial crease and then iron it in after misting with a spray bottle. Sewing success in general seems to be about 40% cutting accuracy, 40% ironing (or "pressing", is what you're meant to call it), 5% pinning or clipping things in place and 15% actual sewing. 

The other things were pretty straightforward. I'd have more to say about them if I had taken in-progress photos, but I didn't and there isn't a great deal to write about. I turned the flat rectangle bag into a cuboid by sewing across the bottom two corners and I added definition to the edges of my cuboid by stitching in a crease all the way along them. I also added a snap fastener to the pocket because I had some snaps around.

I'm really happy with how this has come out both aesthetically and functionally. It's pretty small but big enough for picking up a few things from the shop, and narrowish fabric straps across one shoulder aren't great for carrying heavy loads anyway. The pocket is a perfect fit for my phone (by pure fluke - it's quite a bit smaller than it should have come out). The pocket and snap fastener add just enough detail that it's a noticeably different tote bag without being overkill. I'm a big fan of how, given the cuboid shape, when it's empty or has only a little bit of stuff in it, you can fold the base and sides inwards into a flat rectangle about as wide as a large magazine (but much taller). 

Using a sewing machine was way easier than I thought, and if I can make more things that fall into the categories of:

1. I want them
2. I think they're overpriced when bought premade

I can see myself doing a fair bit of this. The reason I got the sewing machine was that I want a chore jacket but they're all so fucking expensive for what is a very simple piece of clothing that I figured I might as well just make one myself. Obviously now I've spent more on the machine and material than the cost of some of the better chore jackets but in time maybe it'll pay off financially as well as in enjoyment.