Mini Project

I'm trying to make the best of the long amount of time I currently have between now and when I can hopefully begin TTC. Also, my hope for this year was to finish projects I've been doing, and start some projects I've been meaning to do. As I've said in previous posts, I continue to work on my beaded scarf, but recently I found some time to do another project I've really wanted to do.

This one is a garbage bag holder for my car. I try to keep my car fairly clean but there are times when I've just really needed a designated place to put trash. So, one day I happened upon a really great online tutorial for making one.

I already had coordinating fabric leftover from another project, plus matching thread, and even a button originally bought for scrapbooking.

Fabric pieces after cutting

The only thing I actually needed to buy was the really stiff interfacing that the tutorial calls for, which I was able to get on sale!

The sewing was fairly simple once I read through all the directions (the pictures in the tutorial don't always match exactly what the directions are telling you to do).

The pins show where the binding meets the inner fabric

The binding is supposed to be a third coordinating fabric but I didn't have a third one that matched so I just used the lining fabric again. It looks great on the outside but it made it a little harder to sew on the inside.

 For the binding you can sew the inner part with the machine if you don't mind the thread showing on the other side, or you can hand sew it. I elected to hand sew that part because my thread was brown and would have shown up easily on the outer fabric.

I changed the handle directions a little by sewing the fabric right sides together leaving the ends open and then I turned it right-side out, ironed it, and hand sewed the ends. This way the thread didn't show for most of the handle. Then I sewed the handle to the bag and secured it by sewing the button on.

From there I followed the rest of the directions and I was done!

Some things I've noted about this project:

• All in all it took me about half a day and would have gone faster if I had machine-sewed the binding. 
• The bag is actually bigger than it looks in the pictures and should hold a decent amount of trash. 
• I didn't realize how long the handle would turn out to be, and it means my trash bag holder just sits on the floor instead of hanging, but at least I have a lot of flexibility to move the shifter.
• It's hard to tell in the picture below, but there is a plastic bag inside that folds over the interfacing, which I can remove and replace as needed (the tutorial goes over this).

Overall, I am pleased with how it turned out and now I have a functional and cute place to put my trash!

Now I just need to actually wash, vacuum, and clean my car!