Not so magic bag of tricks part one

(I just realized that I wrote this post over a year ago, January 10, 2021, and didn't post it because I wasn't done with the project.

I'm still not, but I am posting this because I hope to be one with this soon. Like later this week. Done or throwing it into the scrap pile done. Here is the journey's start)

Felix the Cat's magic bag of tricks was a lot like Mary Poppin's carpetbag: any number of useful plot devices could be pulled from it. One gruesome family joke was "I'll just reach into my magic bag of tricks and pull out a cure for cancer! Oops, it's a Thompson submachine gun!"

Well, my mother with cancer laughed.

So maybe I still want the bag.

But I don't want a Felix head on my bag. Felix doesn't have one on his, he just wears his head on his body.

And I can make my own pleather print on Contrado

So I waited for a sale. I bought this fabric in March 2020.

And I found a similar-ish pattern and hardware on Emmaline Bags

I had to scale the bag to the length of the frame. A longer frame would have been more appropriate to the original, but I could not conveniently source one.

Test fit the paper pattern and made a toile

And then cut my precious fabric

 

Sewed it

Tested glue to hold the seams flat

The tests both worked.

 

And this is where it goes awry

Clamping doesn't get the glue to spread evenly

So I wrap a brick for a weight

And the glue stops drying.

I was a studio art major in college, and we used to sing a little song about acrylic paint, ala Air Supply's "Love is Like Oxygen":

"Love is like Liquitex

Get too much and it won't dry 

Not enough and you want to cry."

I have too much.

This was June. 

It's September.

It's still not dry.

----

November.

By this point, I just move the box the project is in around. It's too tall to pile on top of

(photo of WIP stac)

I hand stitch down the seam allowances.

One does have to wipe down the needle and the thread with Goo Gone to get things to progress, but this project's progress has been so weird, nothing surprises me now. It's like sewing through rubber cement now. 

This should help figure out how to get the fabric into the frame

https://youtu.be/xEGKckk2WV0?t=1161

Well, in theory it would. If I used woven fabric...it would be very good.

(to be continued)