I finally finished this bag - spurred on by this month's whiplash: bags on whipup. And I'm so so happy with it! It is a "copy" of a bag I have. Or rather, it's a copy of a bag I gave my sister (I have one too). See below for a picture of the original bag.
Anyway - when she moved to America, she was going to give it to a charity shop with some other stuff. But since my bag was looking a bit worse for wear, I decided to take back hers and then use my own to make a template for a new one.
So I spent several hours carefully dismantling the bag, and making sure to notice how it was put together, as I haven't done any zippers in anything before!
The fabric for the bag is one of my dad's old shirts - it too was going to a charity shop, but I thought the blue and brown stripe pattern was so nice, it had to be used for something! And since I had already decided that I'd recycle the shoulder-strap and some of the zippers (which are sort of brown), I thought the shirt would be perfect for this bag.
The blue lining is something I bought years and years ago - long time before I started sewing or had even considered doing so. The front pocket is different from the original bag, which has two small pockets.
I used the zippers from those two pockets on the inside pockets. On the original only one of the inside pockets had a zipper, but I thought it's be nice to have a zipper on the pocket for the mobile phone.
And speaking of zippers, which I mentioned I've never tried sewing before, that went really well. It was pretty straight-forward once I'd carefully studied how the original was put together.
I love this bag for so many reasons! I feel like I've really proven something to myself - I can do stuff that look intimidating when I just put my mind to it! And the bag reminds me of my family - which is nice when they are all so far away - my sister, who didn't want her bag anymore, my dad who didn't want his shirt anymore and my mum who will now be very proud of me!
I don't think she ever, even in her wildest fantasy, imagined that I'd take up sewing - or get a sewing machine for that matter. I've learnt so much from her, mostly by osmosis, as I never had the patience to sit down and be taught how to do these things.
There are some more pictures of the bag here.
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