The Rush Hour Bloghop
Many thanks to Carol and Madame Samm for this one!
I didn't use the specific material but I did stick with the palette. Black, grey, red and white are sooooo not my usual colours so I was left with a quandary as to what to make. Plus I am a lucky housewife at the moment, so I am not even commuting or working. Was there anything I needed that would use those colours that came into this category?!
It was on my way back from the cat cafe (click here for endless posts about Tokyo's cat cafes) that my idea came to me. I had stopped by the supermarket and my tote bag was loaded with groceries, my beloved pepsi and various notebooks, pen and wallets, all sitting on top of my phone and keys. Regardless of the size of the actual bag, the ability for your phone and keys to vanish into it has always amazed me. I cannot begin to estimate how many times I've had to stop and empty out my bag, convinced that I must have lost one or both, only for the missing article to appear in a fold I swear I already looked in three times. Thus I was to be found squatting on the pavement outside my block with the contents of my bag spread out in front of me as I looked for those damned keys/
*gasp*
Hadn't I seen a bag pockety thing on Pinterest a while back?
Wouldn't that be perfect for my pocketless tote bag?
This was what inspired me and this is what I made.
I used some Marvel comic fabric I had just taken delivery of from the Fat Quarter Shop (my favourite online fabric shop) and some tape measure type printed fabric tape I had left from a previous bag project. I also added a couple of metal snap fasteners so the straps could be fastened around the handles of the tote. So this is the bag closed...
And this is it open...
Travel card, keys and phone, all safely tucked away but - very importantly - easy to find without having to rummage and rummage and rummage for them!
I made this last week so this gave me an opportunity to road test it for a few days.
...hmmm...
After three days I threw it away. USELESS! I was deeply disappointed.
Now don't get me wrong - the concept is great! It is my design (essentially just flat rectangles) and the length of my straps that were at fault. The key problems I had were...
The pockets were not deep enough so things fell out, leaving me still rummaging.
Something with any thickness (even just the thickness of a phone) in a big pocket meant it was hard to use the smaller pocket, which was effectively on top of the big one.
The straps meant the top of the pocket was in line with the top of the bag - which seemed sensible to me at first - but then when my phone was basically visible on the top edge of my bag all the time I started getting paranoid about it getting nicked.
I can see on the original that her main pockets were the full length of the insert and her straps were longer so I am considering this one a trial run and planning to make a second in the next week or so. Luckily I have more of my comic book fabric left!
Here is the schedule for the rest of the hop so please go and visit those taking part!
Wednesday, September 24
Lixie Makes It (me)
Thursday, September 25
Friday, September 26
Monday, September 29
Tuesday, September 30