Sewing Rewind: Hodgepodge edition!

When I was making up my sewing rewind lists, I ended up with a few projects that didn't really fall into one category or another.  Here is a hodgepodge of my past sewing projects, including a couple of fannypacks or waistbags, a body pillow cover, and a couple of pouches!  :)


In this post (jump to):

• Dianne Von Furstenburg-Inspired Waist Bag/Fanny Pack #1
• Dianne Von Furstenburg-Inspired Waist Bag/Fanny Pack #2
• Body Pillow
• Reupholstered Kitchen Stool
• Wallet Pouch #1
• Wallet Pouch #2

Dianne Von Furstenburg-Inspired Waist Bags

I was headed to Vegas for a weekend, and I wanted to bring a little pouch for the necessities: room key, money, ID, etc.  It's always a pain to have a huge purse, so I searched for a sewing pattern and came upon this from I Spy DIY!

I thought I could recreate it, so I headed to Jo-Ann's and bought fabric for the bag.  That was the easy part, but then I had to find a chain!  Since I was already headed to the swap meet for zippers, I thought I might find something and I did!

Here's what I came up with!

It can be worn cross-body style or at the waist!  And the chain that I found?  Eyeglass chains that people use to keep their eyeglasses around their neck!  I bought two of them for 50 cents apiece.  Yes!

As for the loops, they turned out just okay, so I tried out my new "pattern" on another fabric.  :)

I kept with the whole animal print theme and went with a Zebra print!

This time, I also placed the zipper across the front, like the inspiration above.

I placed the loops behind the bag, which caused much less pulling.  The chain was only $1 from the swap meet!  I love the braided gold chain and cord look, and it even had that pretty tassel!

Overall, a success!  These would be really cute as a gift, if made with the right fabrics and chains, preferably NOT eyeglass chains.

Body Pillow Cover

My body pillow has been with my since college, and it's perfect for leaning up against and smashing around to get just the right neck alignment.  Unfortunately, after a couple of times in the washer and years of abuse love, it started to rip apart the seams.

At the time, I was just beginning to sew, so I thought I might just sew it up.  Then, I remembered how annoying it was to have that strip of blue on my bed, even after it was almost covered up with my other pillows.

Peekaboo!  I still see you!

So, I bought some fabric from the nearby home fabric outlet for about $5, and made my first body pillow cover!

Terrible Lighting

You probably can't tell from the picture above, but the color is a perfect shade to match the bed!
And check out the piping!  I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to do this, from a YouTube video!

It has Velcro tape along the bottom, so I can wash it easily when laundry day rolls around.  And best of all, no strip of blue!

And I had just enough fabric left over to recover a kitchen stool that had seen better days.  Two for one!

Pouches

This is a story of two pouches.  One fail and one success.  Let's begin!

I saw a fun idea on Threadbanger eons ago about how to make a duffel bag out of a umbrella.  (Side note: The "old" Threadbanger is coming back with new videos!)  I thought it would be fun to work with nylon material, and I bought a cute mini umbrella on sale at Target for $3.  I had to wait for just the right project to come along, when I remembered that I wanted a pouch for my purse essentials.

Wallet, phone, headset, and keys

I dislike having to bring my entire purse with me to every errand, when sometimes I just need the essentials.  So, I measured the contents and came up with this!  It was the first time I used my rolled hem foot (not sure if that's what it is called exactly), and I was happy with the results!

...until I put my stuff in it, and it was entirely too big.

I tried again, and came up with this!

You may be wondering why it's so wrinkly.  It's because when it's not in use, I roll it up small and place it inside the zippered coin area of my wallet.  Basically, I store my wallet pouch inside the wallet!
Perfect!

As for the larger pouch, there's a somewhat happy ending.

I use it to store my patterns and cut cloth pieces of the projects that I'm currently working on.

I definitely started with a fail, but didn't want to waste my project.  I'm glad that I was able to make lemons out of lemonade with my pouch experiment and make a handy dandy pattern pouch.

Has anyone out there been able to salvage a failed project?