Welcome to my blog!

I used to blog here mostly using local photos about my neighborhood or Washington DC or other places I visited. But over time I found myself blogging about crafts or sewing projects or my activities as a seller of collectibles on Ebay (look my stuff up under Mugsim7) or other topics, such as selling my beautiful old Victorian townhouse. Occasionally, I take a break from blogging so you won't see anything regularly. But I'm still have fun writing it. May your days be blessed with miracles, and creativity too!

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Blue Jean Bag Gets Blinged Up With Shiny Buttons

This is another blue jean bag I stitched out of old jeans but this time I blinged it up with some of the buttons I seem to have accumulated lately. I just hacked off the leg pieces from a pair of discarded blue jeans, and cut out the zipper placket part and stitched it together. I specifically made the side seams of the jeans the center line on each "front side of the bag so it would look less like the top of a pair of ole blue jeans!  I also lined the bag with a scrap of bright colored polyester material I'd been given when someone cleaned out their fabric stash. I then added a zipper across the top of the lining "bag" to make the blue jean bag more useful and secure.
The easiest way to put the zipper in was to stitch the zipper in the lining first and then stitch the lining itself together and then put the lining into the bag after the lining was sewn together. I just had to be sure I kept the right side of the lining facing inward!  And where I had difficulty sewing the lining "bag" into the top seam area where the fabric is thickest, such as where the handles were stitched on, I used the hot glue gun instead rather than busting my sewing machine!  I also used the hot glue gun to stick on all the shiny buttons I decorated this with.  It seemed I'd accumulated a lot of shiny buttons from my mother's house when we cleaned it out after she died, and also another seamstress (sewciopath!) had handed off to me her supply of extra buttons.  So I found sets of shiny buttons and arranged them on somewhat haphazardly but following the seam lines.  It's a great shoulder bag and I've been using it a lot and get a lot of compliments about it!