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)

Sew The Precious

Just to be clear, this is what they are talking about

Andy Serkis from Alan Jackson's LOTR

Smeagol at the beginning with His Precious 

I bought this from the gift shop buyer at Seattle Art Museum after the YSL show.

The whole bolt had been hanging out in the display area, and I just had to have this.

I've had this since 2016. Which is not so very long, for someone who hasn't had to move her stash since 2004.

Because I had ideas.

and then they ended.

but I still have the bolt.

It's woven silk (?) folded and fused to a knit backing

Not stretchy but very flexible.

And I have a lot of it. It's two pieces, and I guess I should unroll it to find out how much. I did once, and then I had to roll it up because I started hyperventilating.

I have a couple other precious, but this one is really really precious.

So it's going to be a jacket.

Which one, I'm unsure.  but I have a whole year to ponder this.

You should never give me a whole year to ponder.

The Precious will get to you in the end. Better to cut and sew it to tame the obsession.

And more Andy Serkis from Alan Jackson's LOTR

And Gollum at the end.