Day Twenty: laptop bag

You guys!!!!!! I totally finished the stupid laptop bag today!!!!! I'll admit, I wasn't going to. But I didn't have work or anything today, and I figured it would take me a lot of time to finish, so today would be a good day. So I dragged out the sewing machine and the unfinished laptop bag and set to work. For materials, see here.

First, I made sure that the material hadn't shrunken and my laptop hadn't grown by sizing them up together again. (One of the major problems with my first attempt was that the bag ended up being too small, so I went the opposite way here and made it really large.)

Then I hand-sewed the corners of the soft stuff to the fabric to anchor them. (Another problem I had originally was that I made the soft stuff and the material the same size, so the whole thing was lined - I realized that only the part covering the laptop needed to have the soft stuff in it, not the seams or the lid flap.)

Then I folded it over and pinned the sides (another lesson learned: USE PINS FOR EVERYTHING), then sewed the edges using a sewing machine. I did this a few times, because after I sewed it the first time I realized that it was too big.

I wanted it to be snug around my laptop, not loose. I folded, sewed, and cut a few times to make it fit properly.

At this point, I turned it all right-side out like you are supposed to, and unfortunately it looked like crap because of a bunch of other stuff that was going on. So I turned it inside out again, and decided that the seams showing was going to be an artistic statement! I am starting a new trend here, people, like visible zippers. I bet that was a mistake too! Some designer finished the dress and realized, "Oh crap! The zipper is showing!" but they were on a deadline, so they said, "I'm starting a new trend! Visible zippers!" That's how these things start. (Although I don't like visible zippers.)

Then I added velcro to the lid flap with my sewing machine, only it was the crappiest velcro of all time. It's supposed to be self-adhesive, which I didn't realize until after I sewed on the first two velcroes, so I sewed on the removable strip along with the rest of the velcro. Whoops. Then I hand-sewed the other velcroes by hand, because I couldn't figure out how to stick the large pocket-part (the part that holds the laptop... note to self: learn appropriate terminology for stuff) in the sewing machine without sewing the whole thing shut.

Here is where the stupid velcro showed me how stupid it was: because of the self-adhesiveness, every time I put the needle through the velcro the needle would adopt some stickiness. By the time I'd finished attaching the velcro, the needle was sticking to my fingers and the thread was sticking to the needle, which made the whole thing a very irritating, cumbersome process. STUPID VELCRO.

I persevered, however; no matter how annoyed I was, I didn't want to put this thing away unfinished AGAIN. So I finished all the velcroes, stuck my laptop inside, and shut the lid.

IT'S FINISHED! And not too bad looking, if I do say so myself. I can't believe I actually finished this. I expect applause and confetti.

Day Twenty Highlights: FINISHING MY LAPTOP BAG, and also the fabric - I'd forgotten how much I liked this fabric.

Day Twenty Lowlights: stupid self-adhesive velcro, sticky needles.

Tomorrow: I'm at a wedding for most of the day, so it might end up being something like my scarf.