Do you follow
Jodi Bonjour's blog Sew Fearless? She's a super cute crafty lady with
four five kids and a poet for a husband. (Not to be confused with my dear friend
Andreae, who also blogs, has four kids and is married to a poet. It must be hard, it seems, to refuse the advances of an amorous poet).
Jodi is also a patternmaker with a small line of cool projects for kids and super useful tutorials on things like
adding nursing openings to empire-waisted tops/skirts. (I'm bookmarking that one even though my husband's not a poet and I'm planning on being pregnant anytime soon).
And she also has the best tag line ever: "Over come your fear of needles." Love it.
So of course I'm super excited to be testing her latest pattern, the
Mommy Poppins bag, a carpet-bag-style diaper bag.
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| This is Jodi's bag. To see more version of this bag go to her blog: Sew Fearless |
Please nobody tell my husband I'm sewing a diaper bag. He may get nervous and start checking the condoms for holes, a la Rick Moranis in
Parenthood.
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| Ok, so it was a diaphragm. This movie is from 1989. I was 11 then and didn't know the difference. |
I think this bag is a great design for a larger, NYC-sized purse or bag you might bring on an all-day outing (every day in New York is an all-day outing, and every woman in NYC is carrying two purses right now. Seriously: Google-streetview any Manhattan address and you will see a woman standing on the corner with two bags on her shoulder. We all need massages, stat!)
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| Actual Google Street View pic |
I'm using fabrics I had on hand, the main outer bag being
Marimekko's Lumimarja print (which we had hanging over our bed for years. But I recently changed things up and was waiting to find the right project for this fabric. I love it — plus it was pricey, so I better not mess this up).
The accents will be sewn in the pale brown chambray
Gingermakes sent me (she gets a shout-out nearly every post for being so damn generous!). I also have some suede that I hope to use as an accent if my machine will let me. Check out the cool hardware Jodi sent me:
I've never sewn a true purse before. Did you know there are so many things you need to make a handbag? Stabilizers and sheets of plastic, closures, buckles, three kinds of fabric....I ordered up supplies from
Hancock Fabrics, hoping to avoid a trip downtown to the Garment District (not because I dislike going there. It's just a big deal for me to get the time to myself to travel all the way there from the Bronx). But already I've discovered other stuff I forgot to get before I can proceed....more interfacing, lining, and I don't want to skip the rivets that Jodi includes in her perfect-looking examples of this bag. I do believe sewing this bag is going to be a major learning experience for me.
Why have I never sewn a purse before? I've been dubious that my sewing machine could handle stitching thick layers of durable fabrics or leathers. Also, I've filed handbags under the "Looks better when professionally done" category — a header that also includes jeans.
How about you, readers? Anyone dabble in handbag construction before or after getting their start in garments? What's keeping you from sewing a handbag?
