1981 Volvo 240 Interior turned into a Bag

I tend to gather odd textiles, last year a friend gave me some white vinyl that he pulled off the interior seats of a 1981 Volvo 240 station wagon. I was not sure what I would do with the fabric but I took the fabric with the though that I would turn it into an outdoor pillow or cover an outdoor chair.  The other day I was getting ready to teach a free workshop on reuse. I like to show participants how to make a bag that I found in a free Craftsy class taught by Kristin Link. Kristin ran the website SewMamaSew for several years. In 2015 she started a website called Craft Industry Alliance with another woman. I like to make her bags because they are quick and are perfect for repurposing found textiles. I have used old shirts, jeans and table runners to make these bags in the past. 

As I was looking around at all my stray textiles I saw the large bundle of vinyl. It immediately though it looked like the perfect material to reuse for this workshop. I looked at several tops and handles for the bag before settling on a simple black to make this a sleek and modern looking bag. I wanted a bit of color and found a Hawaiian print dress that I had set aside because I really liked the color and the fabric of the material. The dress was cut on a slight bias so the fabric was difficult to lay out and sew together.  
The out side of the bag is simple to cut out, I used wonder clips to hold the fabric together instead of pins which make holes in the vinyl. I also used a longer stitch length about 3.5 so that the stitching would not just perforate the vinyl and cause the seams to tear apart. 

The biggest problem I had was the interior. Since I used a dress I had issues with some of the fabric that was cut on the bias. It stretched out a little and became a little off shape as I sewed the interior together. I did manage to get it sewn together and I know of these issues are not apparent when you look at the bag. 

I like the way the bag turned out and plan to make another one. This time I will cut the interior so that I do not have as many problems with the bias. I have a Hawaiian shirt that I can cut up and this time the fabric is cut on the straight of grain so the lining should be a little easier to sew. 

Bags for Christmas

I'm kind of hooked on this bags that I learned how to make on Craftsy. It's a free class by Kristin Link who runs the very successful website Sew Mama Sew. I have a lot of upholstery fabric scraps. I had about 4 yards of some black suit wool that I bought at Scrap in Portland. The interiors are all from my fabric collection. The flower fabric above is a piece of barkcloth that I have had for a very long time. I kept thinking I would make a pillow to show off the print. The gold fabric is a piece of upholstery fabric that has a dragon on it. I used some gold lame fabric that I bought at garage sale several years ago (I have about 1/2 a bolt of the gold lame). I was not sure what I would make with gold lame but this is the perfect project to use up the fabric as liners for the bags.

 I put my label on the inside of a couple of the bags. This was more as a way to show the person I'm giving the bag to that I actually made the bag. These are the labels that I put on the clothes I make. I like that the labels match the gold lame fabric. I used some old white handkerchiefs that belonged to my father for one of the bags above. I try to use up as much textile scrap as I can, I really had to see any textile go to waste.

I had a very cute linen table runner and thought that it would make a great bag too. So I cut out the a piece to show off the print on the fabric. The tapestry bag is another piece of heavy upholstery fabric, it really feels like a needlepoint. This was another piece that I have had for awhile and I was going to try to use it to recover a small chair. I instead decided that it needed to be used for one of these bags.

My neighbor gave me several different pieces of fabric with birds that she had bought on-line for curtains. She was not sure which pattern she wanted so she bought a few different pieces of fabric. The fabric above was a little stiff, it feels more like a canvas and more then likely would not have made nice curtains. I made a couple of different bags, one with the black wool fabric and one with jean material (another gift from a friend that knows of my textile hoarding problem). I like them both, the jean material bag on the right feels a little more casual then the black wool bag.

And another bag with the black wool and some bark cloth. Again I was going to make some curtains from the bark cloth but there was not really enough, so it has sat in my stash for some time. These bags are a great way to highlight a small piece of lovely fabric. And they take about an hour or less to make. 

I have collected a few needlepoints to use in future bags as the focal point. I often look for needlepoints at thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales. You can find some interesting things at estate sales. This year for Christmas everyone is getting a home made bag filled with home made preserves.