Denim Totes Completed

As I mentioned earlier, I was given jeans from a friend, Barbara, whose husband was ill and has lost weight. I’ve used these jeans in several project including that fabric book I made last month. Her husband recently died, and she asked me to make a couple totes for her girls with the jeans and a couple of his shirts. I had given her one I made awhile back, and she wanted to know if I would make a couple for her children. Of course I’d be happy to make totes for the girls.

 

So after I received the shirts, instead of making the totes like the one I made her, I decided I’d make one from the Crafty Gemini 2019 Bag Club. The problem is that involved fusible fleece which made the bag really hard to handle under my machines. My vintage Elna SU is what I usually use to make denim totes but it’s sick and I haven’t found anyone to fix it. So I’m using my new Babylock and my Juki. My Juki could handle it, but it is just a straight stitch and I needed the zigzag for most of the  pieces.

To make a long story short, this 2-hour bag (according to Vanessa on her website) took me many, many hours, and I still wasn’t done. I pretty much had a melt down. Why did I think I could make this bag? I’m going to ruin both of these machines. Everything I do is crap. You get the picture – a complete meltdown and pity party. Luckily, I belong to a Facebook Upcycle Denim group where the members all jumped in with encouragement, and most told me just to walk away and come back later.

Here is where I melted down. The bag is put together except for the bottom.

But I’m not happy with the binding which is made with his slick shirt. I also used it for the lining of the bag and the pockets. Here it is standing up without the bottom.

Here is the finished bag. I should have cut the fabric up and not used the existing seams. Also I should have stabilized the shirt fabric.

Glad I tried making it, but won’t do it again. Although it would be easier with lighter fabric.

So I decided I’d make two of the easy totes just in case that first one didn’t work out.  I loved how they turned out. Here is the tutorial on them.

Instead of working with the existing seams, I cut the jeans up and pieced the fabric. I didn’t have much shirt fabric left so I used it at the top of the lining and some of my commercial fabric at the bottom.

Meanwhile, before I got to putting the jeans away, Molly decided she’d enjoy the pile on the floor.

I can’t wait to give her these totes. Now that I’ve got that project out of the way, I’m thinking about my next one. For the time being it will NOT involve denim or totes!!