Repurpose Long Sleeve Into A Bag (Part 1)

What to do with unwanted old clothing? Rather than throw them away, why not turn them into something useful. Since I'm a bag lover, I've decided to transform this piece of clothing into a beauuuutiful bag.

I've made some sketches & draw out the pattern. The design is inspired by retro bags with boxy shape & images that has unisex appeal.

You can use a lid cover to draw a curve (one of my not so fancy but useful tool:). The finished size of the bag is as on the sketch paper above.

Here's the cut out parts for making the bag. For the lining, I used an old bed sheet. The gusset is fused with thick interfacing & other cut outs are fused with lightweight interfacing.

I cut out the buttoned front part of the long sleeve to make a pocket for the outer fabric.

A piece of lining is sewn to the back of it. An easy way to make a pocket.

Another piece of the outer fabric is stenciled with a moose silhouette. 

Here's how to stencil on fabric:

1. Draw the outline of an image of your liking on a piece of paper. Stick a brown tape to the back of the paper. Cut out the image using a sharp knife. Make sure you cut along the lines.

The back side of the paper looks like this...

2. Position the paper stencil on top of the fabric. 

3. Now you can start painting inside the stencil area with fabric paint. I lift off the stencil immediately after painting & let the paint dry for  a few minutes. (Drying time varies depending on the size of the painted images)

4. Iron the fabric on the back side to set the colour. You can reuse the stencil a few times, so don't dump it in the bin yet. 

Now that's a cool moose & I'm amused!

Here's a couple of moose :)

I'll be posting part 2 soon.