The Overnight Bag

Project: The Overnight Bag

Goals: install a zipper with very little fuss

Appropriately enough, the overnight bag project spanned overnight. I decided to use an old H&M top of mine (purchased in Amsterdam in 2005) which I never wear anymore because the front has a weird line, then I did all of my measuring, cutting and pinning (before I let Pebbles run around I did a careful search of the floor where she likes to run and found the prodigal pin cushion next to my fan, for some odd reason). Here's the process:

Here's the bag. It's quite large; I measured the base to get an idea of how big the zipper panels should be (55,5 cm x 14,2 cm) and then added some to even it out a bit and give me some seam allowances.

Here's the zipper I purchased, which is longer than 55,5 cm, which I was pleased about.

Here's the top I'll use for the paneling; it's very stretchy, which made it hard to work with later on and which annoyed me mildly.

I measured the panel out from the back of the top, and then I put dots at regular intervals to help me cut it out since it's so damned stretchy. I put the dots on the inside of the top, thinking I'd use the outside as what would be visible, but I realized after I had made the dots that it might be better if the colors were a bit muted. Even when I go into something planning to plan every little thing, I still make split second decisions. Annoying.

Here's the panel I made; you can see the edges are a bit jagged because I simply cannot cut in a straight line.

Then I cut the middle out of the panel all the way to the bottom hem. One thing I do always try to do is use any hem already included in the fabric I'm refashioning so I don't have to bother with it; the only flaw with this one is the hem thread is black, whereas I used white for the stitching. After that I pinned the zipper in and smoothed out any puffing that occured because of the stretchiness. Then I turned the bag inside out and started to pin the panel into it to see how it would look.

After attaching both ends of the panel I turned the bag right side out again (and pricked myself at least 12 times with all the pins) and admired my work up to that point.

I decided not to use the machine til this morning because, as I've mentioned, she's noisy, so Pebbles was able to doze peacefully while I was working. (She's pictured sleeping under the laundry drying rack, which is her favourite place to nap outside of her cage. Don't be alarmed by the red thing next to her bum; it's some piece of something, not a piece of her.)

This morning I turned the bag inside out and stitched it all in together but experienced HUGE issues with the stretchiness of the fabric.

I even changed the foot to a zipper foot, although in all honesty I'm not 100% sure what it did for me.

This is the final result. You can see that the stripes don't match up anymore, because of the damn stretchiness of it all. Next time I install a zipper I will not use such stretchy material. That said, the stitches seem to be holding up well and it does keep the top closed, which is all I really wanted.

The end of the zipper is a bit nutso and it's very difficult to get this part stitched properly with the machine, so I think I'll have to do some handstitching to get the thing not to open on itself.

Here you can see the great disparity between the two sides of the fabric. I know, though, that this is not the fault of my planning in terms of measuring because I did a damned good job. It's because of the stretchiness. So I'm not too upset. The panel on the top is the one I did second, when I started taking into account the stretchiness. I learned a lot about fabric types (i.e. don't use the rest of the shirt until I've figured out how to deal with it) so that's good. At least I'm learning things.