Tote of Wonderful IKEA Goodness

My former roommate brought me this fabric one day last year and said, “I bought this cause I was thinking of something like curtains for my house and then our color scheme changed. Would you like it?”

Of course!

front

It’s a decorator weight fabric, definitely. Strangely, I made a dress out of this stuff once. Much too stiff.

But it’s the perfect weight for a bag!

I recently came into temporary possession of a second laptop, for work. I’m trying my best not to do anything personal on it, which is moderately working, so often I bring in my personal laptop for lunchtime and when MATLAB is taking its good old time.

But if I shoved both laptops, both power cords, a lunch, a snack, my purse, a notebook, and other little bits into any bag I own then I would never be able to find anything.

top

I’m not a big bag person, but this thing is massive.

It’s a rectangular prism shape, with nice thick straps. There are individual pockets for each laptop, and each powercord. In height, it’s about two inches taller than my bigger laptop is wide. There’s two bento-box shaped pockets in the remaining area inside, one roughly the shape of each of my bento boxes. That way, either box would fit for lunch, and the second pocket holds the purse, snack, etc. And on one of these inner pockets, I

The entire bag is lined, since the lining is where I constructed the pocket frame.

top2

All of these pockets are free floating, though, except one that is sewn down. I didn’t have the patience to continue after the pain that one caused me.

In hindsight, it would have been better to shape the sides as trapezoids (or trapeziums if that’s your fancy), but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. To keep the sides from gaping open uncontrollably I attached two lines of a thin elastic across the long side. This thing holds everything I need to survive a day at the office.  Or two days on occasion.

Super duper handy.

front2

Knapsack

At the beginning of the semester I ran into this problem…

whole

My trusty backpack that I’ve used since 8th grade was just a bit too big for what I needed to bring into grad school each day. You see, I have an office, or rather a cubicle in a shared office with three others. I’ve personalized it and everything. Most of my prop type things have migrated there. So I don’t have to carry around an entire world, since I’ve got plenty of space to stash stuff.

And my “laptop” bag was too small. I made it specifically to carry my old laptop, which was a smidgeon bigger than my current one, and one or two notebooks. I have managed to stuff up to 6 slim notebooks and the laptop, but I was constantly worried about it breaking. I am planning to use it as a “round campus” bag, though.

But I really needed an in-between bag.

So I made one to fit my laptop!

I cut the back to the approximate dimensions of my laptop, adding about an inch to the width, and a few to the height, which I later cut down to size. The width of the laptop segment was maybe 2 inches? I measured the depth of my laptop to be 1 inch, and I wanted some extra clearance room, since this was non-stretch upholstery weight fabric. I forgot, though, that my laptop has some curvy sides, which also ends up adding clearance room.

inside

The other bit of side is trapezoidal, made from an eyeballed width of fabric at the proper height, triangled, and sewn up. The front panel was just a longer version of the back. I added a top flap, which rarely seems to sit properly, but I like it. The straps were made up of scraps, and are actually comfy for being un-interfaced and un-padded.

It’s  unlined, but that’s more because I was lazy, and for the most part the seams are unfinished. All the pieces went through my serger, except the top flap, but the seams themselves aren’t backed up.

But it fits everything I need, is comfy, rather stylish at the moment, was free to me, since I was donated the fabric, and I know how to fix or remake, if the need arises.

back

Backpack crisis averted!

Rainforest Purse

This may be the project I’ve stashed the longest. I never cut it out, or even read the instructions.

I was in maybe seventh grade, or eighth, and I bought this at a moving sale for my favorite quilting store… AKA the store at which I learned to quilt and fell in love with sewing. Granted, they were moving next door, but to a much smaller space and they were getting rid of lots of cut fabric items.

fabrics

And look at these fabrics! Aren’t they really cool? And as for the quilting, I really hate the boring straight line approach, so I went with the lackadaisical curving way.

So I picked up this really neat looking purse pack. Originally I think it was supposed to be $20, but I got it for five… Which was probably better considering that my allowance was probably about five at the time, so twenty would have been extravagant for me. It’s called the CQ Quilter’s Purse, I believe.

But I am on a mission to finish projects, and this one was eating a hole in my blog (ship’s) hull.

teaser

Quilted the fabrics together, cut out the pieces, made the piping, and sewed it together in an afternoon! Or, rather, afternoon and evening… I took a long dinner break.

It’s the perfect size for a project purse. Enough room for all the necessary purse constants as well as a small knitting project. Like socks. Such as the Christmas presents I’m working at… I should get back to work on those…