Ew...my blog sucks

So I've come to accept the terms that my blog sucks...I need a new layout and blah blah blah.  On another note, I've been super busy launching my brand, which is a good excuse why my blog sucks, no time to chat about daily events, just GO GO GO. 

I opened up an online storefront in Facebook (www.facebook.com/keivahns).  I still have my other website but I figured it would be easier to manage if I was able to squeeze everything into the same account.  Less to remember, less to upload. 

I'm still debating where else to sell my stuff.  I really really want an Etsy shop but they have all these fees to list your items and then commission on top of that not to mention the additional Paypal transaction fees, where my Facebook store is 100% profit less my Paypal transaction fees.  I wonder how I can expand...I love you so much Etsy but what the hell.

My First Bag

Let me first start off with the idea behind the bag. I came home Saturday, super pysched that I had completed my toss pillow cover at sewing class. We picked fabrics for our next project which will be a tote bag.

I learned the basics of using a sewing machine and what I didn't know or couldn't remember I had my handy sewing machine manual. I was so pumped from class that I wanted to make something else plus I wanted to see if I was able to do so without the instruction of a teacher. So I googled to find a bag I liked. I needed a weekend bag so I was looking for an easy one to make. I decided to make a duffle bag from this link.

Off I went to JoAnn Fabrics, it was my first visit and holy goodness it was amazing and overwhelming. It was like the Super Walmart of fabric and all things crafty. I literally spent two hours in the store. I think the first hour was really just spent browsing and touching all the fabrics.

When looking for things for my bag, I found a ribbon that I thought would look cool as strap. I bought cotton webbing instead of nylon (just preference, I liked the brown cotton better than the brown nylon). I figured I could sew these two together to get a nice strap. For the piping, I got home decor piping instead of Wright's piping for the simple fact that I didn't like any of the colors available. I got an outerwear nylon quilt fabric that was on clearance. I didn't realize it at the time, all the types of zippers so I opted for a brown and gold fashion zipper. I didn't find out til much later when the project was almost done that a purse zipper has that extra edge on BOTH ends of the zipper...o well. I got two different colored threads. A light brown to sew the ribbon to the nylon and a dark brown which I used for everything else. Hopefully due to the fact that I didn't exactly follow the "material instructions" my bag won't fall apart :-/.

My original plan was to make this bag but then I decided I wanted square sides (in doing so I figured I needed a larger rectangle so I cut 19.5 x 49, only to find out that to get square sides you do not need to cut out squares, just a larger piece of fabric and then when I sewed the strap on the fabric. I used these youtube tutorials to learn how to sew a zipper on correctly here and here. The ends of the strap looked like crap so I sewed the 12.5 x 12.5 squares (to replace the circles) I cut out together to get a larger piece and then sewed that onto the bottom of the bag with piping, I followed "tote bag instruction" pictures step 9 and 10 from here.

I sewed up the sides of the bag with piping and then followed these instructions to get square sides. I measured down 3.5 inches from the tip of the "triangle".

I spent two days working on the bag, I would say about 10 hours. During this time, my thread broke a million times, my bobbin ran out a dozen times, and my needle broke once. I also sewed the zipper on the wrong way and then had to seam rip it all out and do it again. I need to figure out the tension on the machine, I think that is where most of my issues are with my thread breaking and also get more familiar with heavy duty needles and threads.

The bag ended up looking like a zippered slouch hobo and its still big enough to be a weekend bag!