Remember pay it forward? My final project did get finished... and when I was mentioning to someone today how it seems to take forever for me to sew a bag with a lining, the herringbone bag (and its sad blog neglect) came to mind.
Last fall I found an enormous men's blazer at the thrift shop that had clearly seen better days... and yet the honest, woolly earthiness of the colors won me over. It had a brown with the deep reddish tint of good farmland soil and a nice solid grey. And really, what's not to like about herringbone? It took me ages to construct the bag because the deconstruction of the jacket provided oddly shaped pieces of fabric and I wanted something that reused some of the original details intact. Ultimately the plan for a fold-over flap was scrapped (too hard to line, and obscured the pockets) and a slim book bag was born.
My desire for a fusion of very modern lines and classic fabric was somewhat obscured by my amateur sewing skills. I was completely unable to to top stitch evenly around the top of the bag and handle (my usual trick) so some painful hours were spent hand stitching the lining and bag together. Oh, and there was interfacing and boning and a magnetic snap closure or two...
How people crank out heavy duty bags is a bit of a mystery to me.
When I was done I almost couldn't part with it...
