Raincoat Bag

A few weeks ago I was at Dressew (Vancouver's discount sewing mecca) and found a 2 meter piece of teal raincoat fabric on sale for $1.99.  At the time, we were in the middle of several weeks of grey, rainy weather, and the teal vinyl seemed like the perfect thing from which to make a bag...

Several weeks (and a few trips to other local fabric shop later, here it is!  :)

 Here's a shot of the inside - complete with an internal zippered pocket, a custom-sized cell phone pocket, and magnetic closures.  (please don't look too closely at the stitching - I make no claims at having sewing skills beyond those I learned in grade 8 Home Ec!)

There are dozens of tote bag tutorials out there if you want to make one of your own - my  bag is based on this tutorial from a blog called The Longest Year, as well as this zippered pocket tutorial.  The whole thing cost me about $20 - the hardest part of it was fighting with my sewing machine, which kept eating the vinyl (put some lightweight paper between the vinyl and the machine for easier sewing) and can't hold its tension to save its life.

Of course, now that the bag is finished and ready to brave the rain, the weather gods have decided to bring us a week of sunny weather!   But when it comes back, I'll be ready!  :)

In other news, Darcy and I headed out to Fibres West in Abbotsford today to partake of some fibrey goodness.  It was less fibre-festival, and more shopping-oriented than I was expecting (there were no sheepies, alas!), but it was still a great opportunity to be able to see (and fondle, and buy!) so many locally produced yarns all in one place.  I willingly fell of my yarn-diet to buy these little lovelies:

This is 2-ply Organic Merino from West Coast Fibre Works, in the SaltSpring colourway.  This one called out to me, leaped into my hands, and then insisted on coming home with me!

And then I found these guys...

Well, to be honest, I found one of them, and then a very lovely knitter who was holding on to the other one decided that I needed it more than she did, so she gave it to me and bought something else instead.  I didn't catch your name, but thank you whoever you were!  :)

And now to go decide what these guys want to become...