Quest Completed

I've been working on the orphan block tote bag in fits and starts, most sessions ending with "my head HURTS" from all the working out of dimensions and figuring out construction sequences. But it's all together now, my quest for a big bag for my knitting over. I said I wanted a big bag and it is BIG: 10 x 16 x 16 inches tall. 

The headaches were of my own making as I tried to be clever about hiding the seam allowances on the inside rather than just making a separate lining. My solution not only "encased" the seam allowance but eliminated additional seams on either side of the blocks. Not sure you can what's going on here but basically I pinned a piece of fabric on front and back of the blocks' sides and turned inside out after stitching - look ma, no exposed seam allowances.

 

The bag is so big because I decided on a two inch border all round the 12 inch blocks. I'd sewn a two inch strip to the bottom of each block before adding the side fabric that had an extra 2 inches on each end to form this border after pressing. I'd been mulling strap attachments when I noticed another bag of mine had straps that did not feed through a top seam of the bag but extended down the fronts. Aha! So I sewed a band along the top that when turned to the inside would provide that two inch border on the top of the blocks.

I'd considered some kind of stabilizer on this band but abandoned the idea since I'd not stabilized the sides, counting on the double layer of fabric to be enough. I turned under a seam allowance and pinned the turnover to the inside, attaching it with machine stitching in the ditch from the outside. The inside of the bag is on the left. I also ran some stitching along the folded edge to stabilize it.

I made some straps that would finish two inches wide to fit in that 2 inch border space on either side of the blocks, its raw edge ends to be caught in the bag bottom's seam. Again I'd wondered about using stabilizer inside the straps but was beyond being interested in fussing with that. (So ready to be done with this!)

I used the same narrow topstitching I'd used around the top of the bag to attach them and stabilize the parts becoming the handles.

Now on to the last step, the dreaded setting in of the bottom. I really did think long and hard about this step from the beginning, but because of my other design choices, I couldn't opt for an easier way. And my "clever" way of encasing raw edges of the seams was not going to work here. I also had to trim the pieces I'd already cut for the bottom, the dimensions arrived at when I'd thought I could extend it like I had the sides to form the bottom border of the blocks. I made a bit of a mess of the 90 degree turns needed to set in the bottom section but close enough for my needs.

With the bag essentially sewn together, my speculation about needing to add a really stiff stabilizer between the inner and outer bottom pieces was spot on. And the easiest way to hide the bottom seam allowance might be to wrap the inner fabric piece around the stabilizer. Here I've used a Roxanne marking pencil which I'd found out does not easily erase as advertised. This was a good place to use it up where it will never show, marking the quarter inch seam allowance for a guide to placing the stabilizer.

I cut some Stiff Stuff interfacing left over from the Eisenberg Fountain quilt. It hadn't worked as I had hoped on that quilt but it worked perfectly for this bag bottom. I applied Heat and Bond to the fabric (normally I don't use this fusible except when making books but I didn't have large enough pieces of either Steam a Seam or Wonder Under on hand), centered the Stiff Stuff within the lines and carefully turned the edges over the Stiff Stuff and fused. Turned it over to complete the fusing to the Stiff Stuff. There, a nice stiff insert for my bag.

Oh how I wished that I could continue fusing but I decided it would be much easier just to run some glue over the seam allowances and plop my stiffener into place. I had a box that was the right width but not quite as long as the bag bottom but better than nothing for having something solid to turn the bag inside out over. I had a narrow strip of the Heat and Bond that I decided to use to at least partially fuse the two bag bottoms together. Here it is with its protective paper removed before adding the stiffener bottom.

Still a bit tricky but not as tricky as fusing would have been, I worked my way around the seam allowance applying some Fabri-Tac old enough to refuse to squeeze out of the nozzle so applied with a glue spatula and pressing the stiffener in place. To my relief, it fit and held. Turning the bag right side out, I could now make that final fuse of the inside and outside bottoms.

I loaded up the yarns and knitted sections of the eyelet cardigan and the bag is more than big enough. In fact, it might hold all the yarn I have waiting to be knitted up.

Knitting projects lined up - need another bag?

It really could have used either some stabilizer or extra padding in the sides, band around the top and straps, but on the other hand, I like that it so easily flops closed to keep the dust out since most big knitting projects take a lot of time. I'm satisfied and rather pleased to have these old blocks out where I can see them. And I'm reconsidering what I said about not needing more pillows . . .