Tag: Bag

Custom work is always a great opportunity to stretch out a little and see how much progress I’ve made in patterning and sewing. This commission was for a tent pole bag to be attached to the top tube of a bike based on a few dimensional needs and a fixed price point. The principle feature was a PALS strip running the entire top and sides and terminating at the bottom corners with loops for extras.

I find it helpful to think about patterning as the outside skin of a desired “box.” Here, I did some math adding up the heights and widths of the various faces on paper then laying them out in chalk on the inner face of the material. I find acrylic quilting rulers to be very useful in this step. The material was then cut out with a hot knife to seal the thread ends.

Sewing on the PALS strip was a new challenge I wanted to get right. I believe I set the stitch up for 1.2 mm advances to 2mm width on the Sailrite LSZ-1. I later cleaned up the threads in between each tack seen as diagonal lines. This strip was used to affix custom velcro straps shown later.

The zipper used was a YKK #5 Vislon zipper with metal, non locking zipper. I find vislon to outperform chain zippers in dirty environments, and in general feel too.

Ends sewn together. I sewed the tube first, then the ends, then the corners to shape the cylinder into a box to spec. It ended up being a little long and greater in circumference than was asked, about a 1/4″ which I hope is acceptable.

Thanks for reading!
– Mirkat