French Seamed Travel Shoe Bag

旅行荷物用の靴袋を作りました。防水加工の布なんだけど、非常にほつれやすい布なので袋縫いで仕上げました。（ロックミシンに糸を通すのが面倒くさかったというのもある）
巾着袋なんて簡単だと思うけど、８つもまとめて作ったら、それも袋縫いで作ったら縫い目が倍だから結構時間かかったわ。
袋縫いで巾着の紐を通すところをどうやって縫うのかわからなくて調べるのにも時間がかかった。

I made travel shoe bags. Lame? It's called practicality. Also for reducing fabric stash for our impending move.

The fabric is Ripstop so that you can put wet shoes in it if needed and still pack it in your suitcase when you are traveling. This particular Ripstop is, however, very prone to raveling, so I sewed the bag with French seams.

I actually made 8 of these bags. It was a lot of French seams.

Again, you would think that a drawstring bag is so easy an ape can sew it, but I had to spend a couple of hours searching for tutorials to make a bag with French seam because I did not know the best way to handle the French seam on the side as well as the drawstring cord channel opening. Anyway, I wrote down the instruction! Hopefully the instruction and the drawing will make sense when I make it again in the future.

Finished Knitter's Bag

編み物バッグ完成しました。編み物をする人にあげました。
毛糸を入れておくと、編み物をするときに毛糸がするすると巾着部分から出てくるわけです。
布に見覚えがあるな、と思ったら大正解。リュックサックを作った布と同じ布です。
内側の布はこの前作ったチュニック丈のシャツの布です。
また荷造りしなくちゃいけないから、持ち物削減期間です。

I finished the knitter's bag and it was given away to a knitter. Hopefully it works as well as I planned it to be. I imagined if you put the yarn in the bag and cinched the drawstring top, you get the string of yarn coming through from the drawstring top. At least that's what I'm hoping.

The fabric is the same upholstery fabric I used for my backpack and the lining is the tunic shirt fabric. I will have to be packing away soon so need to reduce my stash fabric.

If you are interested, this is my note while I was planning and making. You think that a simple tote bag or a drawstring bag is so easy that I can make it without instructions, but I always end up spending too many hours going through tutorials every time. So I have learned now: make my own instruction and take a picture so I don't lose it.

Knitter's Bag in Progress

編み物バッグを作っています。

Butterick B5526 Tunic Hack #2

先日のチュニック丈のシャツをまたしても改造して、ピンタックなスタンドカラーチュニックシャツを作りました。
ピンタックが完ぺきではないけど、私のレベルでは上出来だということにしておく。
フリルもつけてみたりして。

I originally intended to enter my last Butterick B5526 tunic hack for the Tunic Contest on Pattern Review. However, the final garment wasn't quite "tunic" in my opinion; it was more of a shirt that was tunic length.

After Google image searching tunic photos, I realized that what was needed for the shirt to look properly "tunic" was the bib or some trimming around the front placket. So I decided to attempt a pin-tucked bib, and this is what came out. Obviously, I did not finish it before the contest deadline so this was more like a contest sew-along.

The pattern is Butterick B5526, a shirt pattern. I used the view C, the long shirt version as my base. I cut a size 12 this time, and the shoulder came out a bit too wide. I also shortened the bodice by 2" at the hem.

I cut the front bodice on fold and added the bib, omitted the collar and cuffs, and added frills on sleeve hems and bodice hems. Hems are also cut straight again and I added the side slit. The back was terribly baggy, so I added fish-eye darts.

The fabric is the same gray fabric I used for my last tunic hack. It is a cotton/Lycra blend J.Crew shirting.

My Janome 6600 did not come with a pin tuck foot and I did not a narrow twin needle, so I had to sew the tucks manually, every single tuck, 60 times. Now that I think of it, I could have used my cover stitch machine to create pin tucks. Well, too late now.

So this is how I manually did it.
I  cut the fabric and drew vertical lines 1/2" apart with a Frixion pen on the wrong side of the fabric, which made a thin white scoring lines on the right side of the fabric.

I finger-pressed the fabric at the scoring line and sewed about 1/8" from the folded edge, 60 times.

Once I sewed enough tucks, I cut cut out the bib piece.

Unfortunately, I cut out the bib upside down, so it ended up with the crooked side. Oh well.
The front placket is a separate piece. I used view D/E placket pattern and shortened it for the length of the bib.

It is neither a perfect bib nor perfect pin tuck, but for a first time attempt, I think I nailed it.

I recently bought a button foot and used it for the first time on this shirt. To be honest, I don't need a special foot. I can sew buttons using the open toe foot that came with the machine. But I was putting an Amazon order and needed a filler (because I don't have a Prime account for UK Amazon). It's less than $2, so why not?

I secure the button with a scotch tape then add a couple of pins between the button and the foot (I don't have  a tooth pick at the moment so making do with 2 pins) so that the buttons are not sewn too tight on the placket.

The sleeves and the hems have frills. I cut the fabric 1.5 times the length of the hem and gathered them. I am not really good at distributing the gathers.

At the end, it resembles more of a Victorian nightgown than a tunic, but well, it came out pretty close to what I imagined.