Filed under: Projects
Heres to boredom.
Harajuku Peacock Bag
I bought this peacock singlet in Takeshita Street, Harajuku (the shopping district made famous by Gwen Stefani). I loved the embroidery, but being a Japanese ‘one size fits all’, it has never fit me. Naturally, I decided to make it into a bag.
Again, this bag involved either recycled materials, or those I already had: singlet, brown tablecloth ($3 from a local op-shop) and a brown belt (originally 2 for $5 from Jeanswest Clearance) that I’d never worn. Once again (see black hand bag entry, from a few days ago) I used thermal curtain fabric for stability and strength. The zips used I bought in bulk from an op shop around five years ago (I always have hundreds of zips … maybe a bag made entirely of zips is up next …? I’ve seen them done.)
This time I took construction photos, with the intent of demonstrating how I put together some of the tricker aspects: mostly pockets. It is, again, based on JCaroline’s Hobo Bag Pattern.
The best feature of this bag, is the hidden pocket inside the external pocket: it’s not apparent. Why the obsession with hidden pockets? I keep passports, travellers cheques and important documents in them when I travel; they’re hardly secure enough to smuggle dope through customs, or if a thief steals the whole bag; but they will prevent a pickpocket taking anything serious, or a random backpacker quickly searching through your bag from finding the good stuff.
Just to make things more challenging, I put a zip in the top. Not as hard as I’d expected.
If you have any questions, please don’t hestiate to ask.
Again, if there’s anyone making clothing or bags from recycled materials, let me know. I’m also interested in unique approaches to making clothing or bags.
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- Harajuku Peacock Bag
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- Internal pockets with blue edging and zips. There is a large internal zip (behind the peacock), two pen slots, a mobile phone pocket, a money pocket and a pencil case.
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- Large external pocket. I handsewed the brown fabric around the zip to avoid visible stitching, and to give a neater finish.
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- The hidden pocket, the zip of which is white, and out of site above the external pocket opening.
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- Construction of secret pocket: completed.
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- Above the opening is the white zipped opening for the secret pocket, stitched in such a way to be flat and unobvious.
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- Opening of the secret pocket. The interior of the secret pocket is poplin, the external pocket is curtain thermal fabric (shiny cream).
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- The frontspiece of the bag. Behind the peacock, to be accessible from the inside is a large pocket. The peacock, being on knitted fabric was mounted on a sturdy curtain fabric; this fabric was also used as one side of the internal pocket. Because both outside and lining were attached from the beginning (due to this pocket), it made putting all the body pieces together interesting.
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- The brown fabric was handsewn onto the pocket construction because I wanted a clean finish, but also because machine stitching would go right through the secret pocket.
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- The inside pockets. A rectangle of brown fabric, and poplin lining is bound with binding on one edge. Pockets for pens and my mobile is pinned and darted.
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- I wanted a pencil case (typical teacher need). I sewed the poplin lining in such a way to avoid visible seams (even on the inside of the pencil case).
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- Pockets ready to be stitched. The pencil case is secured. Last minute I decided to turn the left hand corner into a money pocket (what can I say, thousands of zips).
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- Sew one side of zip for money pocket …
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- … and pinning other side to lining piece.
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- All pockets stitched to lining piece. I tried to organise it so I would have to stitch a minimum of seams.
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- Pockets and lining piece ready to go. The small loop on outside the money pocket is for hanging keys or similar (I always need to hang something on my bag).
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- Remember I said the peacock side was attached to the lining by one of the internal pockets? Here, I’ve put together all of the pieces and it is ready to be turned inside out.
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- Turned inside out, ready for finishing along the top.
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- Zipper piece to go in the top. I bound it with blue for the interior to avoid exposed seams (both for cosmetic and durability reasons).
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- The zipper piece stitched in, the strap (actually a Jeanswest belt with a few pieces removed) fitted in (using a similar method to the original Jcaroline pattern).
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- Finished. Now the edges have been bound with brown fabric. One edge of the binding was stitched, but again I decided to handsew the rest, for a neater finish.
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- Note I didn’t attach the zipper piece at the ends, only along the horizontal sides: this is to allow the zipper piece to move and also so I can drop money in without having to open the bag!
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- The other end of the belt was just tacked to the side.
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