Beach Bag

While scanning Pinterest one day, I came across a lovely beach bag with tutorial. The beach bag itself looked very nice, and I was in a bit of a bind as my future sister-in-law's birthday was drawing near, I had NO CLUE what to get her AND my funds were extremely limited, as they often are being a stay-at-home mom with no personal income. I knew that my brother-in-law and his future bride were planning a destination wedding in the winter, so when I saw this particular pin, a light bulb turned on in my head...YES! Of course a beach bag would be a great gift! The issue was that the only things I'd ever sewn before were curtains. One straight line from top to bottom. Simple.

I clicked on the pin and found the tutorial to be extremely detailed and the overall pattern seemed fairly easy. So, I grabbed some fabric and started cutting. Of course, I made a "trial bag" first, as I didn't want to gift a Gordon Gartrell special...




Denise Huxtable thought she could sew...Is this what I'm in for??


... and learned right away 1) what I could improve on, 2) what I should add and 3) which instructions I needed to stick to word-for-word. I didn't have any canvas straps to add to my "trial bag", so I tried to tube some fabric and sew them on as straps. This turned out to be a modification brain-fart TO THE MAX and it stunk! They ended up being super flubbery (which means limp and lifeless to the layman) and I wasn't sure that my sewing prowess was adept enough to keep the straps attached to the bag for a prolonged period of time. I also wasn't sure if those silly handles would be strong enough to carry some actual weight in the bag.

Have a look at the trial bag (those straps are GHETTO!)

Now because I didn't want to use the fabric straps, and was well aware that my sewing skills were green at best, I ran down to Home Depot, grabbed some bulk rope, some grommets from Fabricland and I begged my husband to reach back into his memory and use the rope burning skills he learned in his camp days. Et voila. Simple, sturdy NO SEW (being key) straps.  

After trying out bag numero uno, I also thought that the original bag pattern didn't have enough storage pockets, so I created a small, square pocket that fit onto each of the side panels. These pockets could be perfect for suntan lotion, keys, water bottles or any other smallish type item you might want to cart to the beach.

And if I may say so myself, it turned out pretty good. (for someone who doesn't know what the heck she's doing...)

Ta Da! Look at those beachy straps, people! Pure genius!

Now, I'm not overly keen on giving hand-made gifts to people, especially when the confidence in my sewing is pretty low, but the present seemed to be well received (a.k.a. - no one laughed in my face.) And I liked it enough to create my own, which (not to toot my own horn or anything...) I use quite often.

And this is what started a terrible trend in my house. I've created a monster... A girl who thinks she can make stuff...THINK being the operative word... Let's see how many Frankensteins I can create before my husband can escape from the craft pile I've buried him under! 

Whatcha think?

*** Super hugey shout out to Elle Apparel for creating such a wicked easy tutorial with fantabulous step-by-step instructions for the most novice of sewers to follow. Please check out her blog and see all the awesome stuff she's made!
http://elleapparel.blogspot.ca/