craftgrrl | yarrr!! a pirate bag!!!

I've posted here before (a long time ago), as _car_1399. Hello again.

So I don't know if I'm the only one in this community, but I have a bit of a thing for pirates. Since "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" came out last week (it's FANTASTIC, by the way. I encourage you to see it), I've been in a particularly frenzied state of obsessiveness and basically everything I've done has been somehow related to pirates. Crafting has been no exception.

I used black and white vinyl and lined it with a black and white polka-dotted fabric (I have no idea what kind, it was in the remnants bin).

Front

Back

I cut the image out of the black vinyl and laid the white on behind it. Awesome skull and crossbones traced from a capital N in Wingdings at something like 200pt. Hooray! What a useful font.

As you can see, my stitching is kiiiiinda sloppy. I've been told to get a teflon foot to work with vinyl but I've been a bit lazy about it. I'm going to start making bags to sell, so I'll have to get one soon.

I used a decorative stitch to hem the polka-dot fabric, and sewed the handles on in a criss-cross square type deal.

Inside (pardon the awkward lighting). Perfect-sized pockets for my phone, pen, and Zen MicroPhoto in its Altoids tin case (pictures of that further down). The main pocket is a good size for notebooks and stuff so I might even use this for school.

On the shoulder: The straps ended up a perfect length without me having to redo them about 10,000 times... a miracle for me. It's also just small enough for me to hold the straps in my hand while I'm walking without the purse hitting the ground.

I love wearing my pirate bag and bandana together.. My next project should be a pirate shirt. Would that be completely overboard? (ha-ha. get it? sorry.)

And just because I can: my boyfriend's cat. Simba likes to kill things, so he's sort of like a pirate.

This isn't pirate-y, because I made it a lonnnng time ago. It's also not very pretty, so I sort of need your help with that. If you have a suggestion that would make it both pretty AND pirate-y, I'll give you pirate cookies.

I admit I stole this idea from the

craftgrrl memories some time ago and made one for my brother, but I did this one a bit differently. I had this weird foamy stuff so I just started cutting it and gluing it into the altoid tin with Mod Podge (probably not the greatest glue to use, but I had it around, and I'm lazy). This time I also made the holes in the top with a regular ol' hole puncher rather than a drill, which I do suggest if you try this. If you drill, you have to sand the other side when you're done, or else you have a sharp bumpy thing all around the hole. My Micro sits pretty loose in it, too, so I didn't put a ribbon in to help me take it out.

Empty

Holes. The only down side to using a hole puncher is that you can tell you used a hole puncher. See the bumpiness? ew. But using the drill is harder, because it's more difficult to get the right size hole.

Anyway, I've been planning to cover the ugly foamy stuff with fabric for a long time, but I don't really know how to attach it. I don't really think I could sew it on to the foam, and I don't know if glue would keep it there. I'm also not sure if I want to paint/collage the outside, because it's kind of fun when people look at you funny and say, "You're listening to an Altoids tin!?"

I'll probably be posting again later with photos of a bow-tie I made for my dad for his birthday in May. But right now he's not home, and I don't know how to tie a bow-tie.

Comments/constructive criticism are always welcome and appreciated! Thanks for looking.

x-posted to

sew_hip and my journal.