Mountains of Straps & A Re-Do

I do believe Florida is officially underwater.  Between the gulf, the ocean, and all this rain I think my car could float down the street!  I only wish we could send some of this rain out west to help all those who are affected by the fires 🙁  It’s a sad thing and I really hope mother nature evens herself out so this wacky weather will calm down, don’t you?

So while the rain came down steady all day and the husband having a day off, I was able to spend a ton of time in my studio working.  I spent most of the morning cutting strips of brown marine vinyl in 2 1/2-3″  width and about 23″ in length to start my strap construction.  The Consew below is industrial and is meant for leathers, canvas and other thick and tough materials, so it was no problem to sew through the vinyl, I just have to take my time.

By mid-afternoon I had managed to cut, stitch and finish straps for 6 bags.  I tend to do assembly line construction for these types of bags, so it felt really nice to get this step done and not have my machine break! (She’s a moody machine.)  If you would like to create vinyl straps like this, my bloggy friend Janelle over at Emmaline Bags & Patterns has a fabulous tutorial for how to sew professional straps using vinyl.  The best tutorial I’ve seen out there and it’s the technique I use again and again.

This is a shot of the straps on one finished side.  What I did next was take coordinating fabric from the totes I’m working on to finish the straps on the other side, like this:

This is a really solid strap and I was able to interface it as well before adding my  finishing stitches.  I am so pleased with how they turned out!! The vinyl I used for the straps is the same vinyl I’m using for the bag bottoms as well so I think they will add a nice touch.

On the non-bag-related front I am still working on my Patchwork, Please! sew-along project for the week.  I thought I’d be done early with this one, but somewhere along the way I messed up. Big time.  I thought I cut everything out correctly, but this is a definate fail!

If only I could make the patterned squares smaller with a wave of my magical wand. I think at this point I’m going to rip it apart and try again because it will bug me to no end if I don’t fix it.  Do you ever get like that?  On a positive note, I was able to complete 2 blocks in my BOM 2012 class and they were super easy.  The next 2 blocks up are the Dresden Plate patterns, which look so pretty but also look a bit intimidating!  I’m going to watch the vide0 tutorials tonight and see how they work.  Stay safe, warm & dry! ~Cindy~