We were in San Jose and SF with the family for most of the day, but after we got home, I felt energized. Going to the symphony can do that for me, and we had fifth-row seats (yay Goldstar!) so we were really surrounded by Rachmaninoff’s second symphony in all its glory. (Not that Rach’s one of my favorites. He’s a bit overt for my tastes. But I can’t argue with his brilliance.) Erik and I had a pleasant dinner out, then I decided to patch up my favorite reusable bags, which have been fraying and holing for quite some time.
I only just realized, while looking up the Acme Workhorse bags online, that I was really an early adopter of this model — my comments are on page 83, the second-to-first page, of the reviews! I love these compact bags and they’ve served me very well, but the fraying has been bothering me. I don’t know if there is a way to fix holes and tears in the actual weave of a fabric — as opposed to on the seam — but if there is, I have no idea how to do it. So I just made patches out of my most colorful linen scraps, and sewed them on with zigzag stitches.
It’s kind of hard to photograph the patches, but they look quite cute and I’m delighted to have fixed up these bags I’m so fond of. The patches should stay on, but I’ll have to add more if the bags fray in new places. We’ll see how it goes.
The patching-up of the reusable bags got me so excited, I wanted to sew something else. I’d read in Sew Subversive that it’s possible to make tote bags out of old t-shirts and sweatshirts, so while we were in San Jose over the weekend, I collected one of my old 3-Day tees (I have at least three more) for this purpose. After reading through the instructions, I realized that after having made more than a dozen reversible totes in the past month or so, I could have figured out how to make the tee tote myself. But oh well. I cut up the tee and set to work.
Compared to my reversible totes, making an unlined bag with an intentionally casual (read: sloppy) look should have been a breeze… but, unless I did something wrong, sewing stretch fabrics is a pain. It wasn’t hard to make this bag, but it was SO boring. The stretch stitches took forever, but required no skill on my part, so it was like watching paint dry for seam after seam after seam. Augh! I don’t know if I can ever make another one of these bags, unless I figure out how to make the stretch stitching go faster! Just thinking about it is making my shoulders hurt again. But the bag is functional, and will be great for toting clothes to and from Bridges.
After I finished the tote, I cleared up and collapsed into bed. I’m going to go now and do some reading on stretch stitching… see if it’s always supposed to take that long!
**update**
My books were not helpful on the topic of sewing stretchy fabrics, but the internet provided some help:
- I probably did not need to use the stretch stitch. Apparently it does take forever for everyone, and isn’t always the best choice, either. Everyone seems to just recommend a short-to-medium-width zigzag stitch, so maybe I should just have used that.
- The tricot stitch (dotted zigzag — it’s the D setting on my machine) is the stretchiest, and is good for things like swimsuits (not that I expect ever to be sewing such things).
- I’m supposed to use a ballpoint needle with knits.
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