Well, Crap

So I thought a fun project that would occupy some time (and also be productive) would be to make my own version of this "Leetle Bag".

I was at JoAnn's the other day and found this really pretty, sheer navy blue material dotted with glitter and tiny rhinestones (to look like stars), and thought it would be great for a dice bag (for my Dungeons and Dragons game - I need a new one because my original set of dice walked off with the dice bag, perhaps never to be seen again). I don't have a sewing machine and I felt that this wouldn't be hard to hand-stitch together. Yes, I need a sanity check - it would take me a half-hour to sew this if I had a machine set-up and ready-to-go.

I found another "starscape"-like cotton material to serve as the lining of the "Leetle Bag". I bought a fat quarter because it's the perfect size (18" x 22") for the bag - you don't actually have to buy 3/8 yard (as per the directions). I did end up buying 3/8 yard of the sheer material because it obviously doesn't come in fat quarters. I also bought a yard of navy blue cording (it's fairly light cord, but I couldn't find a cord I liked that was the right "weight") and navy blue thread to match the fabric.

I've altered the directions slightly and am cutting one rectangle of 9-1/4" x 21", instead of two 9-1/4" x 10-1/2" pieces. (I just noticed I screwed up the math already - and I'm a math minor! What's up with this?)

I'm already stuck. I noticed last night that, if I made the bag following the directions, the wrong-side of the cotton material would be on the outside of the bag, and I would lose the cool effect of the two materials that I had hoped for. However, if I further altered the directions so that the right-side of the cotton material was facing out, my dice would be subjugated to the wrong-side of the fabric, and the interior of the bag wouldn't be neatly finished.

I have a solution. I could go back to JoAnn's, find the cotton fabric on a bolt and get a 3/8 yard swatch. Then I could cut a rectangle 9-1/4" x 38" and sew it to make an inner bag where both the outside and the inside were the "right side" of the fabric. I would still have the problem where there are seams showing on whichever side I decide they're on, but it would be slightly more ideal.

Alternatively, I could go back to JoAnns, get another fat quarter of the cotton, and make an "inner inner bag" or (more likely) use it as a lining for the sheer fabric. I think I like that idea better as the cotton will "stabilize" the sheer fabric, which is very slippery.

I also noticed after-the-fact that the sheer fabric doesn't have the glittery pieces equally distributed, so one side of the bag will be noticeably different from the other side of the bag in terms of how "starry" it looks. Which means that I will have to either (A) live with it, or (B) go back and buy another 3/8 yard and cut it so the glittery pieces are more evenly distributed. Because I'm a perfectionist, I think I'll go for option (B).

Furthermore, I also think that I'm going to get my iron out, undo the (tiny amount) of work that I did last night, and draw some lines to follow when I'm stitching this stuff together. Eyeballing doesn't work and makes for very uneven stitches.

And this was supposed to be just a fun project.