I've written before about my Pinterest-inspired craft projects. There's lots of crafty inspiration to be found there - probably more than I'll ever be able to attempt in my lifetime!
Pinspiration struck again when I was visiting my family over the holidays, and I noticed my sister stashed all her cosmetics in generic plastic zipper bags. She said she didn't see the point in spending money on fancy bags to carry cosmetics, when plastic bags worked just as well. I thought I could at least make her some custom vinyl zippered bags - and I already had a tutorial pinned to a Pinterest board!
I made a practice bag first to test everything out. I followed the instructions as written in the tutorial, but added gussets to the bottom of the bag for a little more versatility. The vinyl came from my local Hancock Fabrics store - I went with a fairly thick vinyl for durability. The vinyl was about 60" wide, and I bought at least a yard - I'll have enough vinyl to make bags for a long time!
I thought my sister would get a kick out of having custom zipper bags with fabric from her alma mater, so out came the University of Florida scraps. I used matching regular sewing weight thread for all the seams. This used a 7" zipper and finished at about 7x6".
This one also has a 7" zipper, but is taller and has deeper gussets.
Some tips for sewing with vinyl: increase your stitch length up a click or two (sew a test seam to see what stitch length works best). I used a #14 leather needle, which punched through the vinyl nicely. If you have a walking foot - use it! Also, it really helps to put a piece of scotch tape on the bottom of your presser foot. The tape helps the vinyl feed over the feed dogs more easily. Above all, don't hurry! The vinyl is sticky and wants to adhere to itself, so just work slowly and deliberately to avoid problems. Using tissue paper in between the pieces of vinyl might be helpful, but I didn't want to pick pieces of paper out of my seams!
A handy travel set for my sister!
I need to get some more zippers - I've got plenty of vinyl and plenty of fabric scraps - I can see using these for all kinds of storage!
