Kayakin' Tote Will be finished

Kayakin' Tote

 

FABRIC is KAYAKIN' on  Little Seneca Lake- (500 Acre), in Black Hill Regional Park, BOYDS-CLARKSBURG, MD

FABRIC is  KAYAKIN' AT SUNSET at OCRACOKE ISLAND, NC

Found this beautiful batik in my quilting stash...

Colors look great to go with everything

Here is the bag before handles are attached and top is finished

Now there is one thing... The fabric is shorter in width than my kayakin' fabric for the outside.   I don't want to loose any of my fabulous pictures on my fabric, so I have to piece the sides... but that will be fine.  It might even add extra body on the ends of the tote because it will seam where it is folded.

Doesn't the colors in the batik look good with the outside of the tote.

And then..... I found while I was diggin' around some old piece of hard leather that I was reluctant to throw away from some old leather deteriorated thing of someones... I think it is the right size for the bottom insert.

It seems to be the perfect size... We will see when I attach everything together.

In this picture you now see another piece of skin, I found so, I am thinking maybe it would work for bindings on the tote... We will see if that will work..

As you can see on the floor my beading bag is laying there...

I am so tempted to start something else...

I am determined I will finish this first... then maybe make little miniature sewing machines in cross-stitch to place on covered buttons to make earrings...

ANNND... I found this snazzy fabric... so finish one thing and then do what I am going to wear tomorrow... and then do the Doggie Billow....

Pieces are laid out for the other items...

 No, I didn't do anything else yet..

I was so excited about the beautiful batik lining... I forgot to sew the plastic liner to the lining before I put the leather bottom in.... sooo I will improvise as usual

I did beautiful flat felted seams on the end pieces of the batik and made a tube for the inside of the tote

 Now it is one big tube to go inside

So I did the flat felt seams to insert the bottom for the inside, but I forgot the clear plastic to be sewn directly on the lining pieces after I made the tube and then sew the bottom on-do as I say and not as I do...

I am going to make a clear plastic liner to put inside before I sew it all together.

Sew Now... The Stabilizer piece for stiffness and body needs to be sewn in a tube piece to go between the outside and the liner and then a Plastic Liner made the same way to insert into the inside of the liner.

Liner is sewn flipped-Stabilizer sewn flipped-lining in the Stabilizer and then edge folded over and see how much stiffness is obtained.

 

For all -Tote, Liner, Stabilizer and final Plastic lining- Fold the corner and stitch a triangle on the corher the same size

Trim so the ends of the Tote are squared off

When turned inside out after trimming bottom of tote has this shape on both sides of bottom

In this one I felt it did not have enough stiffness even with the Leather bottom
so, I will cut  a piece of thick cardboard the same size as the leather and put in the bottom

Then I have to decide on trim and handle placement-which looks better the batik or the leather trim

I think the batik trim looks pretty and then with the handles

After that when all pieces are the same size tube the top edge can be covered by either a bias leather strip, or a plastic strip, or a bias batik strip covered by plastic before sewing it on the edge...

 

 

 

I vote for the black leather trim.... and the batik will be inside so that will still be beautiful

Now just make the clear plastic liner and then sew all layers together at the top edge... make the leather trim top stitch that around and then 

Stitch the handles on both sides and away I go....

This is plastic on outside and sewn in lining.

I love it already.... next black leather over seaming on sides for inside plastic lining and then black leather trim on top where it is batik...

 I should end up with something like this color scheme when finished...

IT TOOK A LOT LONGER THAN I EXPECTED.... but I am LOVIN' IT!!!

Then the handles through it all...

This is a closeup of the Skin/soft glove leather that I had in the drawer

This is what I am using to edge the inside of the clear plastic lining on each side.  Then it will be a seamless lining at the bottom of the inside of the bag and just a covered seam on each side going down to the bottom.

 

This is just wrapped on and then top stitched like a piece of packaged bias tape.

You Can see it is top stitched... and next I turn it inside out and place it in the bag and Put the Black Binding around the top of the bag.....

OOOPS... the plastic inside turned out to be smaller, so I had to improvise...

There was more pink snakeskin soooo,   I improvised... I had some more of the snakeskin, so I made a water bottle/thermos holder inside pocket.

 

The skin just happened to have a square sticking out so I made a tube, overcast stitched it and folded the square under and stitched around to create the Thermos/waterbottle holder-turned it inside out and stitched it on with tabs of the soft leather

Here is the finished Thermos/Waterbottle holder that will be tabbed inside the Tote Bag......

 

 

 

  Here is the side showing my kayakin' in the sunset at Ocracoke Island,  North Carolina

  Here is the side of the Tote showing a sailboat in the afternoon when I was kayakin' at Black Hill Regional Park, in Clarksburg, Maryland

I absolutely love every fabric used.   The difficulty was the plastic sticking to itself or the sewing area until it was finished to something....

ALSO  very thick in areas of handles and skins layered... used a number 16-18 when doing these items.  I had to take my matchmaker or IDT off because the tickness was too thick.

 DONE!!!!