Knitting a ranch house
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Long Weekend Bag

2/4/2015

6 Comments

 
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My cat was hanging out in my new photo spot so I just went with it.
This is the year of luggage for me. I used to have one large backpack that I used for backpacking that I would use for all trips. It was great for backpacking and pretty terrible at all other functions. It was too big and ungainly for a long weekend, wrinkled formal wear whenever I balled it up at the bottom of it to take it to a wedding, and the straps always ran the risk of getting caught up at the airport. That said, my partner used to use a garbage bag as his luggage so it could've been worse.
This year I bought myself some rolling luggage and made this bag for weekend trips.
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This bag is large. My 24lb cat looks normal next to it.
This is the duffel bag from the Portside Travel Set from Grainline Studios. I had admired a few of these on other blogs and thought I could make one out of stash fabric which in my head meant it was free despite spending $14 on a pattern. So I did. The stash fabric meant that this is a bit odd looking. The bottom is pleather leftover from my Xena costume and the upper and lining fabric were from a time when I decided to make everyone I knew bags for Christmas and then didn't. At all. I found the zipper in my stash and purchased the strapping and hardware at Dressew, though I do wish it was dark brown instead of black. I didn't interface the bag as directed as I figured the pleather was pretty sturdy and I didn't want to buy much to make this.
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The pattern goes together quite easily for the most part. It's mostly rectangles. The directions are very clear and I found that things went smoothly with 2 exceptions:
  1. Sewing the bottom rectangle onto the bag at the corners. This was really tricky and I felt like I was doing it wrong. I did not get a neat finish on this.
  2. topstitching on the bottom of the bag. This was a disaster and I couldn't do the corners. This may have been due to the pleather being essentially plastic but it looks like garbage.
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I followed the directions except for when it came to attaching the lining. You are supposed to hand stitch the lining to the zipper but I kept stabbing myself so I gave up and used the machine with a zipper foot to do this.
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Let the record show that I do not think these fabrics coordinate in any way.
Despite the poor aesthetics of this bag due to fabric choice, it is an excellent bag. It's the perfect size for a weekend trip and it feels very sturdy. I took it on a ski trip before lining it and it worked perfectly. I may one day make one in fabrics chosen for this purpose but for now I will get lots of use out of this one.
Have you made luggage? Do you have coordinated luggage or do you use a garbage bag?
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    A blog to document my attempts to create a well-fitting wardrobe for myself and my family through sewing and knitting.

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