My second sewing project was to make a simple, quilted, zip-up, make-up bag. Whew!
I am learning two HUGE things with this project: 1. Quilting, and 2. Sewing a Zipper into Fabric. Quilting, for those who aren't sure, when used as a verb means to stitch together two pieces of cloth and a soft interlining (Definition complements of dictionary.com). I am forcing my sister to claim the final product, because I feel like I need to have someone who would use the things I make. So, she chose two really cute green fabrics, one for the inside and one for the outside.
Not trusting my own work, I decided to make a sample first. I have some extra fabric (Thank you Kirstin!!!) and bought a super cheap zipper and some batting. When I went to JoAnn fabrics to buy supplies, I asked the women cutting it for me if she had any advice for a newbie teaching herself to quilt. She told me to draw lines on the fabric, pin it and go at it. So, I drew lines on my fabric. I was apprehensive to pin the layers together because I felt like when I did, it bunched the fabric too much. I thought the fabric would pucker while I was sewing. So I sewed the first set of lines and it went ok. I noticed the fabric and batting shifted while I was sewing. When I did the second set of lines I followed the lines to a T. Later noticing that that was a bit of a mistake. I think what happened when I sewed the first lines is that it distorted my second set of lines I made. Check out the picture.
You can see that the wood table is adding a straight line and that the seams are not straight. The fabric shifted so much while I was sewing that they didn't align correctly.
The second side thatI quilted was better, but still not perfect. After I sewed the first set of lines, I didn't follow the second set exactly, Instead I held the fabric straight while it was feeding through the machine. However, the fabric STILL shifted, even with pinning.
So, I wasn't quite sure what to do other than keep going. I actually found directions on how to construct the make-up bag on YouTube.
There are a total of nine videos that are nicely labeled so you know which one is which. After you're done with the first one it will link you to the second, and so on and so forth. Here are pictures of my process.
The first two pictures are the pictures of the zipper process. The last picture directly above is how you make the bag able to stand on its own, by sewing ear looking things on the inside.The pictures below are of the finished product. It is by no means perfect. There are many, many, flaws. I am pretty sure I am going to do another test run! I think the biggest problem was that the two sides were no longer even which caused the zipper to be uneven.
I don't think I am ready to move on to the final fabric that I paid for for this specific project. I think I am going to do a couple more runs, with or with out a zipper. Even to practice the quilting part. Quilting is a really cool thing that I would like to be able to do well. For this project and projects in the future. The reason I chose to quilt my own fabric instead of buying quilted fabric is because the pre-quilted fabric is expensive and the fabric choices are not always the prettiest.
What did I learn from the first go? Pin, pin, pin, and draw the second set of lines onto the fabric after I have sewn the first set.
Give me a shout if you want me to make you a sweet make-up bag! :) Don't worry, I will work out the kinks before I make it.
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