501 Bag

There are two reasons for calling this my 501 bag. The first is that it is made from my precious pair of 501's. I have only owned one pair, bought many years ago. Only pair of jeans I ever owned that fit on the bum and the waist. Pity they were 12 inches too long. By the time I got around to shortening them, I had gained weight and so they sat around for years, occasionally I would pat them but eventually I gave in and cut them up.

The second reason for it being a 501 bag is that is how many swear words I used whilst I was making it. The pattern came from a book and I couldn't understand the instructions. I made one from a piece of cheap calico to work out how to do it, there were many unpicked seams before I got there.

The last time I inserted a zip into anything was when I did my city and guilds in machine knitting and made a 'biker' jacket. I must have been crazy to put in 7 zips. I was a lot younger then :) Having a zip foot makes life so much easier and I only had to unpick and re-do one side.

I dyed some of the indigo shibori fabric (see post from June 08), some I bought ages ago. The pack had fallen down the back of the drawer and I found it when I had to pull the drawer out to fix it. I stitched and flipped the strips (onto cotton batting), trying to sew the strips uneven was a lot harder than sewing them straight. I had some hand dyed cotton which hadn't been a total success, it didn't have those lovely mottled markings but did have one splodge, so I used that to line the bag.

This is the third thing I have finished this year - hurrah!