Friday, January 29, 2010

The Stroller Bag

Not that stroller bags are expensive or hard to find, but I made one. In the scraps, I had a loudly-patterned tunic with a fringed hem. The tunic was a bit tight in the arms for me, and not very fitted (some curves but no darts).

I turned the tunic inside out, cut across between the underarms, and then marked straight vertical lines on the sides (one vertical line on one side, the other on the flip side -- explained later). I kept the fringes safe with masking tape (no fringes getting caught in the side seams!). I decided I might want attachment points on this bag, so I pinned D-rings where the side seams would go. At first I tried nylon webbing, but it was more than my serger wants to cut doubled over, so I used some sturdy grosgrain ribbon to attach one D-ring to each side. I threaded my serger up in matching colors, and serged each side from bottom to top so I could make sure that the bottom fringes were perfectly aligned. To see the straight lines while serging, I needed the marks to be drawn on the right side with the fabric facing up, so that's why the side seams were marked on opposite sides: so I could serge bottom to top for both sides. After the side seams, I went around the top with the serger finishing the edges for me. End of Day 1 (as much break as the children allowed me).

Now I turned this bag right-side out. Next I measured the right length of zipper tape and pinned it in place. I switched to my sewing machine with the zipper foot and stitched down the zipper. The serged edge is a nice accent without bulk, and it's less loud than the pattern (yikes!). Then I stitched straight across the bottom with a straight stitch. To finish it off, I used small sections of the ribbon to prevent the zipper pull from going too far by covering the two ends. Some of this I had to sew by hand, but it makes the zipper less likely to fail! End of Day 2 (I finished the hand sewing after they went to bed!), and almost done!

I added two ribbon straps, one left and one right, with a box stitch just below the zipper on one face. The boys loved the next step: I put two buttonholes on each ribbon, one close to the bag for a small loop that just fit around the handle, and one near the end of the ribbon for a larger loop (to allow me to hook on various places on our double stroller). My sewing machine has an automatic buttonholer (I don't like making buttonholes, so I looked for this feature!), so I let the boys push the 'start' button to make the buttonholes! Such fun! I stitched down two ribbon "pads" on the matching face to strengthen the buttons. Then the kids joined me on the couch, and I sewed on two buttons, one on each pad. Initially I stopped here, three days to a stroller bag with kids helping me serge and sew.

But then we went to Disney World, on and off the bus with that folding stroller, and the bag going on and off. So when I came home, I grabbed a sleeve (originally I was going to use the sleeves for the button straps, but the linen-like fabric wasn't as sturdy as the grosgrain ribbon) and cut out a five-inch section that I squared up. I had a section of thin batting left over from another project that I stuffed inside this pocket. I made two thin straps, one for each end, and with those in place, I made the sleeve section square. (This will make more sense in a minute, I hope.) The final result was a rectangular pad (in fabric matching the stroller bag) with two straps across parallel edges. I sewed two buttons in the middle of the pad. What I can do now is put each long ribbon from the stroller bag under a pad strap and button it in the middle. Now the original stroller bag converts to a shoulder bag with a padded strap! Just one more day of sewing, and I expect this padded addition to make hopping on and off a bus with a folded stroller and two children somewhat easier. The fewer things I have to hold with my hands at those times, the better.

This stroller bag wasn't hard to make, but I didn't know where I would end up when I started. I'm pleased with the final result, though. And, as a result of the loud print, our stroller is easy to pick out in a crowd.

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