Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bag Issue. Cont'd. [TUTORIAL]

So, I'll make this short since I'll be ashamed of myself if I spend too much time talking about discarded Tshirt sleeves, but in case you're making one of those Tshirt Trash Can Liners - save the sleeves!

Why, why would you do that?

Well, to make miscellaneous pouches for things and maybe a little digital camera sleeve, of course.

I'm sure you can figure these things out for yourselves, but since it didn't dawn on me until I was done with my trash can liners and staring despondently at a pile of soon-to-be-doggie-footwipes, I thought I'd share my thoughts with you guys, as I'm known to do.

Plus, I took pictures, so can't be wasting those 1s and 0s.

Tshirt Camera Sleeve
Materials:
1 discarded Tshirt sleeve
Fabric marker
Seam ripper
Thread
Scissors

To make:
Slide your digital camera into the sleeve and pull the long side of your camera snug against one side of the sleeve, with the shirt's hemmed edge along the short side of your camera.

With the fabric pulled tight around your camera, and using your camera as a guide, trace around your camera on the fabric with your marker.

Sew these lines to enclose the sleeve.


Slide your camera into this new pouch you've created to make sure it fits snugly and that it's long enough to cover your camera completely.

Cut the camera pouch free from the rest of the sleeve, trim corners and, using your seam ripper, rip a few stitches in the middle of the short end of the pouch for the camera strap.


Turn right side out, pull camera strap through hole and sleeve over camera.

Done.

Push the sleeve back to take photos, slide it back over the camera to protect it from evil keys stabbing around in your purse.

See, I barely used any words. I mean, compared to what I usually do.

And, while this may not be the fanciest OH MY LOOK AT HOW AWESOME AND CUTE THAT IS thing I've ever made, it's endlessly useful and will provide many pouches for many scratch-prone things.

See, I tried to make this same simple ass thing twice before from regular cotton fabric to no avail because I can't measure and/or I had lost patience with sewing by the time I got to this project, so it's the closest incarnation of my original design (which was meant to be way hotter) and, as such, is pretty plain and boring.

But, this time perhaps HOT is in the practicality. And the fact that I might save my camera from my mean stabbing keys.

And while I'm thinking about it, some other scratch-prone things that will get probably get protective Tshirt sleeve pouches: Ski goggles (sewn horizontally rather than vertically), sunglasses, FlipVideo cameras, shoes (for travel), jewelry, fancy utensils like my real silver pie server thingee.

Plus, imagine all the possibilities of things I could protectively sleeve if I used that hem as a drawstring strategy? Oh hell yes.

The dog will just have to wipe her feet on towels like a normal dog might.

6 comments:

  1. Nice! Although I'm imagining a Finny House where everything is in a adorable white T-shirt bag. If you bag your dishes... STOP making bags- immediately.

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  2. I so want one of these. I'm carrying my camera with me everywhere now that I'm doing the Photo of the Day thing on my blog and I'm worried about the camera getting smushed. I'll have to dig out an old t-shirt. This looks like something even I could make. Or not.

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  3. When my dad first got a cell phone (one of those hilariously big car phone things), he needed something to put it in that would keep it from getting wrecked and would also make it easier to find. So he dug around in the rag bag and pulled out an old sock. Not just ANY old sock, though. MY old sock. My old, hot pink, totally 80s scrunch-down sock. And that was the Cell Phone sock for years and years. It was very stylish.

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  4. Bubba better watch out, or you're going to come up with so many ideas you'll start stealing the tshirts he wears for your projects.

    Ooh, you could make little drawcord booties for Jada! Can't you see her walking around with miniature versions of your trash can liners strapped to each foot?

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  5. This is a great use of the extra fabric bits, more bang for your buck, so to speak. Great idea!

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  6. OMG did you seriously make that diagram? It is so awesome. I love this idea BTW, you are so crafty with your tees!!

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Look at you commenting, that's fun.

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Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.