More on the green bags

Hello, everyone.

This will likely be the final post about the little green bags. There are now three of them!

The cute green ribbon with ladybugs was not in great quantity around here. In fact, there was just enough for the first bag. I discovered a forgotten roll of rattail cord. This is satin-covered round cord that is sometimes used for stringing large-hole beads. The spool had been in the bead stash, not the fabric stash, or it would have been used on all three of the bags.

(Yes, when there is enough stash, it subdivides. The fabric is divided again, between clothing, cushion cover, and quilting. Also "other" for making toys and such.)

 The fabric here is a lightweight nylon poplin from Fabric.com. (This is the search page of whatever they have in taslan. The orange blouse I made in 2014 was also taslan, but it's a thinner, crush-look fabric. So it's a good idea to get a swatch of the stuff before buying yardage.) It is stated to have DWR coating, but I was unable to determine which side the water resistant coating is on. (Shower bags don't get a lot of abrasion anyway. I just wanted enough splash resistance to keep the undies dry!) The fabric doesn't ravel much at all and this was the most successful and pleasant experience I have ever had with French seams. I used a #10 sharp needle in the machine and Coats & Clark poly-wrapped poly general-purpose thread. A #9 needle might have worked out even better, but the only thread I was sure would go through it is "bridal ivory" in color. I went with the matching thread. (Yes, there is thread stash, too.)

In future, I intend to make a ripstop bag just about the same size, to hold clean clothes inside the backpack. When we walked the Portugues in 2015, I acquired a plastic bag in a store and began to keep the clean clothes in it. They stayed together and I always knew where to find them. Between the plastic bag of clean clothes and the mesh bag of medical sundries (hung from an internal strap near the top of the pack) my mind was a lot more peaceful. And there is some ripstop, in about three colors, in the stash. Perhaps I'll use the Sew4Home ripstop grocery bag pattern.