The Silly Shirt liiiiives!

I know I mentioned I had a very silly-looking shirt that I planned to make into a bag. I don't make bags often, so it was a little intimidating (you'd think i'd embrace the rectangles) but I did it!

The shirt probably isn't silly to some people. In fact it would look great on me if I were a bigger person and also planned to be an obnoxious tourist in Hawaii.

So I took basically everything from the armpits down, slipstitched the button placket closed, pleated the whole thing, and made it into a bag. I switched out the buttons because the original ones are quite nice shell buttons and I didn't need to waste those on a bag.

It had to hold my sheet music, shoulder rest, tuner, and notebook, so it didn't have to be anything super special but still sturdy. I think it's going to work great! There are some things I'd do differently next time, but that's what learning is all about! Yaaaay!

One thing I tried that I'd recommend if you'd like your bag to look a little less 'boxy'-- put a small casing on either side of the top of your bag, then make one long circular strap that runs through both of them. When you use the two loops as handles, it'll cinch the sides of the bag via the casing and create a more trapezoid shape. I got the idea from Bend-the-Rules Sewing-- more details below if you are interested.

Here you can see the right edge of the bag, inside the black band that runs around the top. You can see the casing where it looks like a strip of fabric is coming out both sides. That strip of fabric is one continuous strap, and it goes through a casing like this on each edge of the bag. That leaves a loop of the strap on the front and back of the bag for me to put my arm through, and when it has weight in it the casings cinch up to gather the top of the bag together a bit.