Second Spin : First.blog.ever.

First.blog.ever.

I thought I'd start off simple…..

I bought a t shirt from a charity store recently that wasn't really a colour I'd normally wear and when I'd tried it on, fit fantastically as an oversized, off the shoulder number but came up a bit too short for my liking. I bought it anyway - heck £3.50 - not bad for a London zone 2 charity store, so I grabbed it. I figured I'd wear it with the grey jeans I'd nabbed for £2 (charity store bought) that fit like they'd been waiting for me my whole life. But it was just too damn short. I liked the colour (it is a pale pinkish colour (my technical terminology is astounding!)) and there were birds migrating all across it.

I'd picked up a canvas tote bag with Mick Jagger on the front, possibly it was cheap because Mick was NOT looking his best - it was possibly the most unflattering picture of the man I'd ever seen. Sorry readers, I couldn't post it - once seen, never forgotten…

This is the story of what happened when the two garments collided….

First I chopped off the sleeves and turned the garment inside out to pin and stitch the sleeve openings shut.

Stitched shut!!

Next, onto the bag.

I put the bag inside the t-shirt (the neck is still open) just to see if I was lucky enough for a snug fit on either side. I wasn't.

So I took the t-shirt off the bag, turned it inside out put it over the bag. I made sure that the bag was lying completely flat and also flattened each side of the shirt and started pinning it to fit snugly onto the bag. I didn't pin the shirt to the bag, as the bag is going to be the inner lining and I didn't want the two attached, I wanted movement between the two and no unnecessary unpicking if this didn't work!

After stitching the sides down, I removed the excess, and did a zig-zag stitch to reinforce where I'd cut - I'd be carry loads in this bag, and even though most of the weight would be in the actual tote inside, the outer would be re-enforcing the inner.

Next, to tackle the neck-line.

Another reason I left the neck until after the sides were stitched was that the neck line is curved, and I would basically be wanting a pretty much straight bottom. I found that easier to work out without all of the excess material on the sides.It's very hard to see in this picture, but there is a stitched line straight across where the dip in the neck line is lowest.

I'd pinned this whilst still encasing the tote so I could get a measure of where, but realistically it really had to be at the lowest point of the neck line - it had to go... luckily (or perhaps ironically!) there was enough extra material at the bottom of the shirt for the top of the bag to play/work with.

And wha-la! The basic casing for the bag!

In goes the bag.... goodbye Mick!

Next to attach the bag. Firstly, I unstitched the handles inside the top of the bag (that were stitched for re-enforcement).

Where I was lucky was in that the t-shirt was the perfect length! The hem of the shirt folded over the top of the bag perfectly! I folded the handle straps back over as I pinned the shirt in place.