Making handbags

Sounds interesting - what was the title of the DVD?

Katy M

also has some super easy instructions on how to make handbags/bags in general. really creative people over there...someone made a bag out of ties (yes, the kind that men wear with suits!), whoa!

=)

Ooohhhh, I'm a sucker for handbag patterns and books.....

Wild Ginger (maker of Pattern Master Boutique software) has freebie software package for patterns for hats, bags, etc., at:

There's quite a selection of stuff in there... I may have to try out the "ergo bag" pattern, since I really like the bag I bought, but it would be fun to have one in funky fabric for spring/summer...

Yep, I already have it, but I still drool over handbag patterns -- now I just save the pix so I can replicate them.

I have an ergo bag I bought from Sierra Trading Co for $40 and I love it

-- when it goes to that Great Handbag Place > Wild Ginger (maker of Pattern Master Boutique software) has freebie

Melinda, I made the ergo bag from Wild Things. I used it when I went overnight to a conference. I was to get a ride home (200km) with a friends husband. When he came to asked me where my suitcase was and I showed him the bag that I was carrying, (also used it for my purse) his remark was that he wished his wife knew how to pack like that! I've had to live that down with the females of my chapter ever since. They say I let the female race down. LOL

My dad taught all three of us girls to pack lightly. Now, when I went back east in the middle of Jan and was hearing so much about the

20-degree-below-zero weather, I packed a few extra layers than I actually ended up needing (especially considering that I found out my elderly aunt keeps her house at somewhere around 90 degrees!) but otherwise I had plenty of clothes with two changes plus what I was wearing. For going to a conference overnight I probably wouldn't even take a complete change of clothes -- just a different top. So I can see how you could not need a suitcase.

My dad didn't teach me how to pack, but if he caught me fretting and fuming over it, he would say "If you are fully dressed when you leave the house, you are all right."

So I mostly fret about changes in the weather, and try to wear hot-weather clothing under my cold-weather clothing.

Joy Beeson

Layers, layers, layers.

It's not the outside world that bothers me here, it's different people's houses and the temperatures at which they (don't) keep them.

We all live in these crumbling old piles, so at one house, for instance, we have aperitifs in the boiling hot living room in front of the woodburner, then have dinner in the glacial kitchen with a huge draught zipping down the open stairs.

Add to that at least two people on Thyroxin and running hot ALL the time, so they keep their houses at about 16 degrees (ouch!) and I never know quite what to wear in winter, so it's socks, boots, slip, dress, waistcoat, cardigan and a big wrap. Eskimo Nell has nothing on me...

:) Trish

Now, there's a job for the microtechnicians! Create a line of garments - perhaps underwear - that can be temperature controlled for outdoors and indoors at all temperatures, but can maintain a comfortable level set by the wearer. AND perhaps most importantly, not add bulk. (Some of us may feel we have enough bulk already.)

This technology is already in the works, Joanne. I heard a talk by Tom Platt (of Tom & Linda Platt design fame) at a PACC convention several years ago, and this was his topic. Very interesting.

Also, when I was in Paris a couple of years ago there was a wonderful exhibit of fabrics used in garments that used light in some way: brocades, velvets, etc, but also some newer, high-tech fabrics. Some of the more recent examples looked like they might have some temperature control ability, especially in the tech clothing for firefighters and other service people. Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Re: Making handbags

Wooweee! Karen and Cea, I missed it. Well, I remember when a lot of things were prohibitively expensive, and now are not, so the day will come. We'll be cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and we'll all look 18. Well, maybe not the last part.

The nanobot technology is really interesting. We're losing the race with anti-biotics, perhaps the nanobots will arrive in time to save us. Do you suppose they wear itsy bitsy white hats?

These are exciting times. I am one of the folk who write on my computer about my treadle sewing machines while my robot vacuum cleans up and my bread machine kneads and bakes. Gotta love it.

I'm pretty sure pilots had electric coveralls in the sixties. I wonder what fighter pilots are wearing now?

Joy Beeson

There are a couple of electric blanket type heated suits in the Imperial War Museum, from WWII, worn by pilots. They weren't much liked as they were thick and bulky and restricted movement. I can't remember whether Dad's G suit was heated, or just coped with excess g forces... He was a Navigator with the RAF all through the 60's and 70's. In the 70's, when flying Phantoms, he had an immersion suit, which sealed round the neck and wrists and stopped the incursion of gallons of freezing water, had he landed in the North Sea. Not heated as such: they did wear special thermal indies with them, in a silk and wool waffle knit, I think. Those who were allergic to wool got special extra thin all silk things to wear under the regular types. I wish I had some of them, as they were very nice to wear! NOT beautiful, but very fine and light and warm and practical!

Turns up memory button... Thinking about it, there were some reinforced tubes that went into the suit: one may have been the compressed air for the g suit, and that may have been warmed up. He got a slightly frost-bitten elbow over the Sahara Desert once, when an air outlet in a Canberra PR9 got jammed on full, blowing at the said elbow, so I know that they were NOT heated.

I DO remember Dad saying that yer breakfast cuppa had better not turn into two, as once you were all suited up, plugged into yer aircraft, and somewhere over the North Sea, it were too late fer a loo break!

In addition to information from our roving reporter, Cea, National Geographic, about a year or so ago, had an incredible article on fabric technology in the works, including that made into garments that can make you weightless (I'd go for that one!), or invisible. Hopefully, no stalkers or other bad people will buy this type of garment. It has great potential for mayhem, in my humble opinion.

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Oooh, Kate, you, too, can own silk undies. There are a couple of catalog companies that sell these, including LL Bean and The Warm Company. They're much prettier now, too.

When I was in sales and had to wear a suit everyday I had some silk long undershirts to wear beneath my suit jacket. That was all I needed to stay warm getting in and out of the car all day long, except on the coldest winter days. Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Re: Making handbags See?? I told you she wore silk long johns! psychic Cea ; )

I've seen them and they are not quite like the RAF's long johns and vests; Good, but somewhat 'nice looking' rather than strictly utilitarian and therefore offering wider coverage! I liked the height crew neck and firmly knitted (without being bulky or elasticated) cuffs and leg ends. I have a feeling they were made in Canada... He got something later when on detachment in Norway with the Phantoms, that the RNAF wore. The Canada ones were cream/white, and the Noggy ones were navy blue. He was told 'You must wear your long underwear: the trolls find you harder to eat in it!'. He liked it as much for fishing as for flying, and managed to hang onto his Noggy air force issue stuff for quite a while. The stuff you see in climbing and outdoors catalogues, for wearing in the Antarctic and up Everest are closer to the sort he wore than the Lands' End type. (I do love that misplaces apostrophe!)

We never lost Dad's car in car parks: I think it was the only one in the UK with a RNAF Oerland Fishing Club bumper sticker! It was the only bumper sticker he ever displayed, other than the GB one!