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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Now That I Think About It, I Can't Believe This is the First Time He's Ever Asked Me to Sew a Bag for Him

One nice thing about sewing is the option of creating that particular thing that you have in mind but can't find. In this case, it was a bag for Peter. Understand, Peter takes his bags seriously. A strong believer in the right tool for the right job, he's on something of a lifelong quest when it comes to finding just the right pack for each of life's gear-carrying situations.

What he's been wanting is a waist pack to wear when he's out on his bike, with just enough space for a spare tube and the tools he carries. After trying this pack and deciding it was still overkill, he finally came up with this highly elaborate pattern for me (note the special, high-tech pattern paper):

which sewed up into this:

Peter provided the webbing, buckle, and heavy duty nylon, leftovers from his own bag sewing days. Yes, he sewed a few mean bags himself back in the day. (Does anyone else find that you and your spouse tended to "specialize" after you got married? He almost never touches a sewing machine anymore and I usually get him to do the things that require power tools. It's just more efficient. I let him install all the Dixie cup dispensers too, and you get points if you know the reference for that inside joke. This parenthetical aside has become considerably longer than the rest of the paragraph.) He cut the black rectangle of grippy stuff from a now-obsolete bag's shoulder strap.

A place for everything and everything in its place. With just enough room left over for a set of keys and a stick of gum.

5 comments:

Lili said...

That's pretty wicked. I'd like to see how it attaches to the bike?

Lili said...

Oh duh. a waist pack :)

Peter said...

This post, like all your others, is fabulous.

I just need to clarify that the sewing was never my strong suit. The bags I made were carefully thought out and strong, but made Frankenstein's monster look pretty hot. Also, my projects (and my sewing) tend to be hard on sewing machines, so I had to stop when you and my mom both got new, fancy, machines that I didn't dare use.

Thanks for the bag. It's just what I needed.

Anonymous said...

I was just about to comment on the Facebook thread that the most effective lies have elements of the truth -- for instance, when I ask Dean to get something down for me because he's taller than me and it saves me fetching a stepladder, it's a reasonable division of labor; also, it IS a good role for husbands to be protective and caring of their wives and for wives to appreciate and encourage that. (I guess I should have just said this all on FB like I meant to.)

That's a great bag.

Dean used my machine once to sew through the tape on a parachute for a rocket, and it left lots of adhesive on my machine; fortunately, it was my old machine. I now keep a nice old Viking around (even paid to have it tuned up recently) in case he wants to use a machine again (or for my kids to use.) (I bet you didn't realize that Vikings are useful for things other than sea voyages and pillaging. Har har.)

Betsy said...

What a team!
(...very cool bag)