Outer space quilted wet-bag

Long time, no post. I know. Like, five months, I think. Well, I kind of took a break from sewing over the summer. It was just too hectic with both kids home all day long. Plus we took a trip up north for a month to see my family. But... now I'm back!

I'm sure there are other things that should be posted first in order to stay chronological... but, whatever. I feel like posting this.

(I'm copying the text from my mommy blog, so if you read that one, you can just skip all this... except that I've added a few more sewing-related bits to captions of the photos.)

Because Austin now has a bag ban there is a dearth of plastic grocery bags in which to send home children's wet clothing. Therefore, Petunia's school asked that parents send a reusable wet-bag for that purpose. They had a link to a bag on etsy and some other suggestions. A friend who also sews wondered why we didn't just make our own. I immediately thought "oh, I could never do that!" but I'm trying to get over that sentiment and really try new things and take risks. Plus, papa B hadn't ordered the bags that we'd discussed buying online so I figured it was up to me to find a solution... on the Sunday before the first day of school.

So, I went to the fabric store and got some rip-stop nylon - the most water resistant fabric they have, then came home and went to town on a quilted, zipper, wet-bag for Petunia.

Mind you I haven't been sewing much and I did this in a matter of hours having never worked with zippers before. I'm working on the second one now and it's going much better. It will have a double layer of the nylon, one quilted onto the back of the batting (which the first didn't have and caused so much trouble with the free-motion quilting) and another as the liner. The quilting on this second one is much better but still leaves much to be desired. But this is why I do it, to improve myself.

At any rate, here are the results of my first wet-bag. Petunia and I are pretty happy with it.

The spiderweb side, as Petunia calls it.

I realized after doing this that I should have put the regular sewing foot back on for all those straight lines.

I'd been saving this outer space fabric for a special project for Petunia and I knew this was it.

The squiggly side, again, Petunia's naming.

At first I was really disappointed with how this was coming out. I felt I just didn't have the control to doodle the way I wanted to. In the end, i'm not too unhappy with it overall. some parts are really messed up but others are pretty good and the whole is kind of interesting. I later realized that I do better if I rotate the work more and use more of a pushing and side to side motion rather than pulling. I've also slowed down a lot.

Also, for anyone who might be confused, as I was when I first started quilting, this is not patchwork, just quilting - the sewing together of three layers of material.

And the zipper with the bright orange nylon lining.