Short & Speedy!

Hello all my people! You may be thinking that this blog post is going to be about the Sewing Machine Travel Bag by Sew Sweetness that I’m working on but nope, you’d be incorrect lol! I’m definitely still working on it but I set it aside for a quick minute while I whipped up a “short & speedy” little pattern because I had a bit of an “ah huh” moment about it lol!

For quite awhile now I’ve been seeing the Quick Boxy Bag Using Clear Vinyl by OklaRoots pattern in pretty much all of my bag making social media groups and I knew I had to make one sooner rather than later! They look so fun and even though I really have no idea what I’d use it for, I still wanted to give it a go! A bag entirely made of clear vinyl with all the seams exposed, and yet, it still looks so finished? I’m in lol! All I needed to do was to decide which vinyl’s I would use! We have lots of cool ones at FMF and I was pretty sure I was going to use the “solid” coloured ones for the bottom and then for the top I would probably use our Premium Clear Vinyl because I already had lots of it on hand after using it for some of the pockets in the Sewing Machine Travel Bag. But then, it happened….I got swayed by one of my favourite on-line shops, Zipper Valley! They announced that they were going to be selling an item I had also seen everywhere and was very intrigued to try it one day, Jelly Vinyl!! Doesn’t that just sound so fun lol, I mean that’s not why I wanted it but it didn’t hurt lol! As soon as it was released, I purchased a roll to try, along with a Striped Zippers Scrap Pack because, again….cute, and I just love having a variety of different sizes and colours, all at a discounted price, they’re so awesome!

I’m so glad I purchased it when I did as it sold out so quickly, obviously I wasn’t the only one interested in this product! I was so excited to get home from work the following week to see that it had arrived, and I was so pleased to see that it met all my expectations, actually surpassed them! It was so buttery soft, and the most beautiful lavender colour! With all of these vinyls, in my experience, there’s always an odor that accompanies them but I just unrolled it and hung it to air it out till I found the time to use it!

So now my decision was done, I had figured out what materials to use but there was one more small “issue”….I was wondering if just using the clear vinyl was too plain? Some days I thought, “no, plain is good” and then the next I was sure it was too plain so I just left it be until all of a sudden, the “ah huh” moment occurred and I quickly set everything aside and got to work! Let’s see if you can figure out what I came up with from a picture…..

Either you know or you’re very confused so I’ll explain lol! I decided to make my own “Custom Vinyl” using my Cricut! I made, are you ready for this……Polka Dot Vinyl!!!!!!!!!!! I’m honestly not sure I could have been more proud of myself rofl! To some of you that are much more Cricut-smart than I am, this is probably the most basic thing but to me, I had literally reinvented the wheel lol! I wasn’t 100% sure I was supposed to or even should, sew through the Cricut vinyl but I just decided to give it a shot and see what happened lol! Just to be safe, I did try to keep it out of the seam allowance as much as possible!

If you’ve already made this bag, you probably know what I’m about to say…..what a fun sew this little Boxy Bag is! It came together so quickly and as always, OklaRoots has the YouTube video you can follow along with but I actually followed one by SiahSwag because she did a couple of things differently that are more in-line with how I make bags! Both are great tutorials so I definitely urge you to go with which one works best for you, heck, there’s probably others you could find too!

So finally, my bag is done and I’m loving how cute she is, and do I have an idea of what I’ll use it for yet? Nope, but I’ll no doubt find something wonderful to load her up with lol!

Isn’t that so fun, and just look at those little purple polka dots lol! My tag looks very wonky in the picture but it really doesn’t in person, well, not that much anyway lol!

My sewing machine, the lovely Judi Juki had absolutely no problem sewing any of the vinyl! I did use a teflon foot, which I’m sure helped, but I also think you could use a walking foot with success too! Jess from OklaRoots suggested using a hair dryer to heat up the vinyl to make it easier to turn right side out but I had no problem doing it without the heat! I love that you can squish this up and it just pops back into shape, and if it didn’t, that would be a great time to heat the vinyl up and get rid of any creases or wrinkles that may occur!

As I’m writing this, I’m looking at the roll of the Premium Clear Vinyl that’s sitting next to me and already thinking of all the customizable possibilities that lay ahead of me, now that I’ve opened that “can of worms” lol!

Now you can help me out by giving me suggestions of what I can put in here…it doesn’t have to be something purple but bonus points if it is lol!!!

I hope you all have an amazing week and find some time to do something just for you, you deserve it! Cheers!

Shawna