Description
Up 'til about two weeks ago, Dylan and I used to ride the train into the city together (he's since changed jobs). There's this guy on the train that carries a Fred Perry bowling-ish style bag (if it's not
this one, it's very much like it). Dylan often sees things in magazines or films and then wants to incorporate them into his life, so I wasn't surprised that he requested a bowling or doctor's bag from me a few days later:)
We had seen this Ruby Star Spring print at
the workroom ages ago, but we actually bought the yard at a huge discount from
Paper Thread. I spent a lot of time staring at handbags when I was out and about (something I normally have pretty much no interest in) and looking for patterns online. Eventually, I just grabbed an image of the print online and drew a curved, trapezoidal shape on the computer at the real-life size that I wanted.
After that, because I wasn't working off a pattern, I made mistakes every step of the way! A lot of it had to do with my never having sewn with leather before. (It was Dylan's idea to use leather in the bag, and I think it's a really great stylistic choice.) But once I bought a teflon foot, things were okay. Sewing the faux-leather piping was also a pain, even though there's nothing complicated about it. In fact, I really laughed when I read
Sara's review of the Amy Butler Weekender bag, which I imagine is constructed very similarly to this bag; she's absolutely right in recommending that you take your time in sewing the bag and take lots of breaks in between the steps to save yourself a lot of frustration. I probably spent a month sewing this bag! And Dylan doesn't even have anything to carry around in it!
