Since I finished reconstructing my cage I decided to make a bag to carry it in. This bag allows you to hang the cage out of the way without damaging the hoop wire (and with the shortage of hoop wire, this is an important feature) and makes it a bit easier to travel with. Is it period correct? I don’t know; I have not found any reference to such a thing, but then again, have never looked. But, for me, it doesn’t matter, as the bag is part of my luggage traveling to events and is purely utilitarian. Thank you to Carolann and Maggie for the idea and no offense meant to them for the ugliness about to follow.
First, you must be in the right frame of mind. I just wanted a bag; it didn’t need to be pretty, or well sewn. Ok…I was lazy. You could put this together very nicely if you took time, but I wasn’t in that frame of mind.
I gathered together scrapes of fabric and tapes not caring if they matched or not. Bits and pieces I would never use or didn’t have enough of to ever use for a good project.
The first step is to cut the bag. This is done by laying the cage on to the fabric and tracing around it, leaving enough on the edge for a seam allowance. Sorry, no photos. The idea of doing this in a blog post came after construction. Then cut them out. If you came to this with the right frame of mind, the cuts do not even have to be smooth, think kindergarten, as long as you have your sewing line marked.
Then stitch it together making sure you leave a large enough opening to get the hoops in the bag. Following the theme of Ugly bag, my threads don’t match either of my fabrics nor each other as you can see on the pictures below.
To close the bag you can attached a flap and button or no flap and whatever closures you feel like using. Me, lazy remember, I used a tape to create ties and just made pretty bows.
You will want to attached handles so you can carry it or hang it out of the way. This photo also shows you exactly how much care I didn’t take in cutting the fabric and sewing it together.
And it’s done. I already baptized mine with some spilled water!
Really, this are ver
y handy little things and do not take much time at all. Even if you want them pretty!
Categories: Civil War