Clothes Pin Bag

Updating the clothes pin bag with skateboarders.

My previous clothes pin bag was sadly becoming more and more difficult to access with the opening raveling slowly away. Since I do need to keep those pegs somewhere, I set out to make a new bag. I’d pinned and saved the pattern in October of 2021, not specifically for this purpose but because I thought it might come in useful at some point. It’s the Best Nest Organizer Basket by Nancy’s Notions and I followed the YouTube tutorial for it. I did make the front just a little bit higher so it could hold more and added a longer strap.

The fabric was some leftover red linen-y stuff for the outside, thin batting in the middle and for the binding and lining a cotton with skateboarders and rope jumpers. I’d initially intended the cotton to be a shirt, but I wasn’t actually sure I would ever wear it, so I think this is a much better use of it. I mostly followed the instructions although my quilting was probably a lot less dense that they would’ve intended. Reason for that was that the timing on the treadle is enormously off and it’s in repair, so the electric machine was used. That machine’s bed is different, so quilting isn’t as easy. The thread was a contrasting yellow that matched the little skateboarders. It also made me play thread chicken, and I won, twice.

It came together quite easily, although I still thoroughly hate making bias tape. The cutting and measuring and marking and pressing and all that jazz is just not up my street. It does look better with this matching bias tape though, so I’m happy I persevered. I also played bias tape chicken and sort of won. There are some parts of the long strap that don’t have a double layer of bias tape, but there isn’t a soul that’s going to spot that, so I’m more than happy with it. I think this thing is really quite cute and it should perform its job. We’ll see in just about 8 years whether it will have held up as well as the previous one did!

Laundry with Peru on the Mind

I have this wonderful friend, who seems to be the complete opposite of me in some ways. She loves to travel (I hate it), experience new cultures (center to corner of The Netherlands is a culture shock to me), eat local food (leave the guinea pigs to her) and live and work abroad. I still love her to bits and she’s absolutely wonderful to be around. However, she’s been in Peru for the past few years, luckily she comes home for Christmas every year. That’s always the time that we meet up, since I’m not yet over my fear of going to places where guinea pig is an acceptable food stuff. Nicest of all, the first year she came back, I got this present!

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It was about a meter of beautifully coloured Peruvian fabric, super bright and striped. Now, I didn’t really see an opportunity for this fabric as a wearable garment in my day-to-day life. However, last week, I realised that it would be perfect for that other thing I had been craving for a while. That was a clothespins bag. Up to now, my clothespins have been hanging out in an ugly green plastic bag. Time for an upgrade I thought.

I’d found the pattern for a retro bag or oval bag via pinterest, original was here. I printed the fabric and found it was much to big to serve my purposes, so I free-handed my own version based on the original. I did pockets on both front and back, because I thought that would be cool. For the contrast I used the same fabric as yesterdays pants, but with added interfacing.

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I learned that you should sew curved seams the same direction as it is horribly asymmetric. I will no either start at the top or the bottom, but not go in a continuous curve, as this stretches out the one half while the other half doesn’t stretch. Since this is a bag with a definite use, and it’s not very noticeable, I didn’t try to correct for that after the fact. Also the Peruvian fabric frayed like nobody’s business, so I had more interest in keeping my sanity than getting it perfect.

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I added a pipe cleaner along the top edge, since that helps to keep it open. It also provides a nice furry edge, which I thought was an added touch. Last but not least I used the handle from an old discarded sports bag, which means that it is adjustable and very sturdy. All pockets are functional and I took it out on its first assignment today and it did the job better than its plastic counterpart. I’m happy! Now on to find a use for the remainder of my Peruvian goodness.