Welcome to the fourth week of the Summer Travel Series! Today’s installment features three sizes of travel accessory bags!
On previous camping trips we’ve just been shoving our stuff into old backpacks and plastic zip bags so I figured it was about time to upgrade!
This project came at the perfect time too: I’ve been looking for an excuse to make something from this purple geode dyed fabric. Check out how gorgeous this fabric is!
I love that with hand dyed fabrics every piece will still look unique even when it’s cut from the same piece of fabric.
My first bag was made using Simplicity pattern 1128 (tote C).
This bag is big enough to carry all our necessary bathroom stuff for our trip, most impressively a full bottle of contact solution. Those things are huge! Needing to see can be a huge annoyance at times.
I did modify it so that instead of having an outside zipper pocket it has an inside zipperless pocket.
The instructions are pretty much what you’d expect; simple and nothing fancy. I can’t say for certain that I finished the zipper properly, but it all worked out in the end. We’ll call it good.
Second was this simple pouch that I’ve taken to calling my Annoying Lady Bits Bag.
I followed Melly Sews Zipper Pouch Tutorial. It’s very well written and the pictures (which I always find to be necessary) were clear enough to show me what I needed to do.
Lastly I made this cute little cosmetic bag using the Flat Bottom Zip Pouch Tutorial from Polkadot Chair.
I’ll be honest here – if I hadn’t already made the zipper pouch at this point, I think I would have gotten confused. I’m not saying it’s a bad tutorial – I just have problems with understanding written directions sometimes. I even have this problem with paper patterns, heck, especially paper patterns! Sometimes it feels like it’s written in another language and I have to read each step 8 or 9 times before I finally understand enough to muddle my way through. I always do better with more visuals and I just found myself going back to the Melly Sews tutorial to look at her pictures.
I’ve never made corners like the ones on this bag before and I just couldn’t figure out what raw edges went where. I had to keep fiddling around with them until finally it clicked and I had that aha! moment.
I do think that this little bag got the best of the fabric though. I love the colors on this guy!
All in all, I was able to successfully make each bag. Should you find yourself wanting to make some simple bags too, I bet you’d have success with these too!
