The Last Bag

This is a teacher's gift for dd's teacher. I've never made one of these recycled jeans bags before, but I thought there was some special irony in making a bag out of the actual jeans that were worn practically every day to school this past year and giving it to her teacher. . .

I hate stretch denim. Look how the front edge ripples along the bottom where it stretched out while I was sewing the bottom gusset on. I should have ripped it out but I didn't. At least I'm giving it away so I won't have to look at it.

The back came out much better, no stretching. All the hand sewing was really hard, needling through stretch denim is impossible (callouses! sore fingers!).

And then I forgot that when you make a ribbon belt you are supposed to continue the ribbon around the back side because that part shows when you wear it. . . So I came up with a strip of red/blue for the back side of the belt.

Other than that I liked making it. I've been wanting to use this fabric for a long time and I loved the embroidery designs of the lanterns which I got from Sublime Stitching.

The little hula dancers are so cute.