Makeup Bag with Vintage Metal Zip

I am so in love with this makeup bag. It fits all of my makeup perfectly without any wasted room. And, I attached the zipper so that it is exposed in all it's cute, colorful vintage glory, yet the edges are finished on the inside properly. 

I started off my dumping my makeup in a pile and roughly measuring said pile. Then I took those measurements and a pencil, and drew two pattern pieces. I've had this shape in my mind for a makeup bag for quite a while, it was nice to see it actualize.  I didn't photograph the pattern pieces as I was making it, but I drew a little rendition of their shape so you can see how easy the bag was to draft.

 

The front/back piece is an inch wider at the bottom and cut on the fold so the final piece has a 2'' discrepancy between top and bottom. The side piece is 2'' wide where it becomes the bottom of the bag, then quickly tapers where it meets the corners to about 1/2''. 

I attached the zipper by sewing the lining/exterior fabric right sides together to the zip with a teenytiny seam allowance, then flipping and ironing. This way as much of the zip was left exposed as possible. I also waited to interface the front pieces until after I had attached the zipper, to prevent bulky seams.

I got SO LUCKY with the color of the zip and the piping. I had bought the piping when I picked out the fabric, but I totally forgot I had this zip. I was going to use a dull green one, pshh. How much cooler is this color combo?

This was my first time piping seams. I used my Singer Genie with a zipper foot attachment to sew as close to the piping as possible, but even that left it with more showing than I would like. I'll read up on inserting piping and try again when I'm not worried about catching a flight. 

Overall, I love my new bag. It's about 10''x2''x3'' (measurements taken on bottom, before the bag tapers). Its bigger than I thought I would need, but still fits into my big weekend purse. I'd like to make another in the same fabric, but super big, for all of my toiletries. How cool would that be when packing?

I mentioned a while back that I'd be making a few grad cakes for friends. I totally forgot to post pictures. This was for my friend Michael who is going to UC Irvine on a great scholarship. The bottom tier is peanutbutter cake with chocolate ganache filling and the top tier is vanilla cake with chocolate ganache filling. Both are iced in Italian Meringue buttercream and covered in homemade fondant. 

Girly Laptop Cover

My little experiment in bag drafting turned out better than expected.

I basically just wanted a lightly padded laptop cover that added a little peace-of-mind protection but not a lot of bulk. I cut 14'' x 10'' rectangles for the exterior and lining. I got those measurements because my laptop is 13x9, and I figured an inch would be enough for a seam allowance and a bit of wiggle room to accommodate the thickness of the laptop (which is less than half an inch). 

I used purple metal jacket zipper from the SAS zipper bin and applied it as an exposed zip, using a tutorial from DIY Style Vodcasts. I skipped the stabilizer because my fabric wasn't stretchy, but I did like their idea of taping it down instead of pinning, and that worked very well.

I tried to get clean edges on the inside by ironing a little hem in before stitching the fabric pieces to the zipper on the inside. This more or less worked. You can see the white and black from the exterior fabric peak out from under the purple inside, but at least none of the edges are raw. Not the very best option, but passable.

I used a heavyweight fusible interfacing on the exterior pieces and sandwhiched two cuts of a fleece-like fabric between the exterior and lining as the padding. The padding fabric was labeled as a fleece, but it wasn't thick like most of what you see at Joanns; it was more like felt in thickness, but was softer like fleece. 

I decided half-way through to add a patch pocket to the top for the laptop charger, phone charger, little post-its, etc. I didn't really measure it, but the size worked out just about right. I sewed a rectangular scrap of the lining fabric right sides pressed together, turned, and applied it as a patch pocket. I gave the pocket a nice deep pleat in the center for roominess, and a button-closed top flap to hold it all in. My topstitching could have been neater, thats for sure, but I can live with it. The button is from my stash, probably from JoAnns.

Overall, I'm very happy with my laptop cover. It fits perfectly, has a good amount of protection but not bulk, and I learned a bit about zipper application in the process. And after a full day of traveling (Phoenix to Toronto, Toronto to Zurich) I can say that my laptop was not damaged or scratched one bit. And it fit into the seatback pocket with my magazines, which was convenient. 

It's a bit after 6pm here in Zurich. I had a really nice day walking all around town with my Aunt. I stumbled into a yarn store owned by a hilarious British woman. Her and I talked for some time. She told me about two fabric stores in town that I'll be visiting soon. She also talked me into buying some super-soft, Swiss-made baby alpaca fiber yarn. Darn :)