Deep Breath In….

Oh my goodness, if that title sounds ominous, it’s because it’s supposed to lol!!!!!! You guys won’t even believe my luck, and sadly, I’m not talking about “good” luck!!! There was a point that I was literally saying to myself, “deep breath in….and let it out, deep breath in….and let it out”!!!

Now I know what you’re probably thinking if you read last week’s Blog….uh oh, it didn’t go well and she’s finally lost her mind!!! I’m happy to report the exact opposite happened….I was very successful and finished both of my sewing projects and started on my Cricut project! The problem was an issue I had with one of my fabrics, and it was discovered at the point of no return!! Story time, so settle in lol!

As you know, we’re heading off next weekend and I “need” 3 projects done for then, a walker bag, a Dayna Pack and a fun Cricut project! So….I get the pattern for the walker bag on Thursday, rush to get home and get started on it! I will tell you all about it soon, but since it’s still a surprise for it’s recipient, I don’t want to say much about it yet, other than I got it finished!!! Then I started on the next sewing project, a Dayna Pack by Linds Handmade for me in the theme of, are you ready for this….CURLING lol! Just look at this amazing-ness…

Isn’t that so cool….and that awesome little zipper pull is where this particular project all started, all thanks to our amazing customer Christie Stevenson! She posted this picture on one of my Blog posts about curling and I was automatically in love with the pull!

As I was considering if it was appropriate to privately message her and ask her where she got it from, she messaged me and told me it was from her local Goldline Curling Store, which she just happens to work at!!!! So as we were heading off to our next Brier game, we made a detour to our local store and I stocked up on pulls and other fun goodies of course lol! After much searching, I finally found some curling fabric at my local Lens Mills, which paired perfectly with Kona Lipstick and I had just enough left over from my other project for this one! In my stash I found some black vinyl for the accent pieces and backing that I have had for ages and we were ready to go!

The last time I made the Dayna Pack, I followed the pattern exactly as it was written by Lindsay but there was a couple of hacks out there that I thought I’d like to try next time perhaps, a card slot on the inner lining piece and an additional zipper top section. For this one I decided to do the zip top, thinking I wouldn’t really need the card slots as I’d have lots of room for my wallet in the additional section, among other things! I did it the same way as my other Dayna Pack, with the webbing sewn directly into the bag and just using one Plastic Buckle and a Webbing Adjuster/Strap Slide. As a reminder, here’s the first one I made…

I’d forgotten how quick this pattern is, even with the additional section, I was still done in really, a few hours! I flipped it right side out, birthing it if you will, and that’s when disaster struck…..

The vinyl was peeling, actually peeling away from it’s backing!!!! The bag is sewn, it’s completely done….all that needed to be done was to close up the whole in the lining and it would be done….what the heck do I do!!! And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where the breathing instructions started lol!!!! I just sat there staring at it for probably 5 whole minutes as I contemplated my next steps, which really included only 2 things….leave it be or rip it apart back to when I added the vinyl. I will truthfully say that I’m quite proud at how I reacted to the whole situation….the breathing was a real thing I did but I never really got upset, I didn’t “freak out”, I remained quite calm! As I sat there, I started picking at it and it peeled off so easily, leaving quite the mess of little particles behind but what surprised me was that I didn’t hate how it was looking! I just kept peeling each section until I got it all off and then I went to work at getting all the loose bits off and voila, a new and unintended bag emerged….and it’s pretty cool looking! I never took a picture of the process because once I was in it, I didn’t stop till it was done lol, but here we go, here’s what I ended up with……..

Well? Not to bad, right? If I hadn’t told you this whole story, I don’t think anyone would have guessed that any of this had happened lol! It’s certainly not perfect but considering what happened, I’m pretty darn happy with it! The material that is left behind is quite thin, I don’t think it would hold up for years of usage but since this is probably something I’d only use to go to curling events, I think it’ll be ok! And even still, if it falls apart AFTER this weekend, I will still be happy that I got even that amount of use!

So if I had to come up with a moral of this story, I think it would be “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”! I could have just given up, thrown it in the garbage and started over but instead, I worked with the flaw and made it into a “creative” feature lol!

Have you ever had anything like this happen to you? Did you pitch it in the garbage or figure out a way to salvage the project?

Next time I come to you I’ll be so glad to share my other project, in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for me that the receiver loves what I’ve made for her….cause there’s a distinct possibility she won’t lol! I’ll explain that in the Blog, I promise lol!

Wishing you all an amazing week!

Shawna