Stitching up my Everyday Bag

Around 3 years ago, I went on a cruise with my family to explore the Caribbean Islands. As we’re all children at heart, we figured 7-nights aboard the Disney Fantasy could be a fun experience- and it was! I had three main takeaways from that trip: the islands and their inhabitants are beautiful and rich in culture, H2O+ makes some good hand lotion, and this shoulder bag-

Close-up of the Disney Cruise Line “Castaway Club” Shoulder Bag

Then, on a walking tour- tragedy strikes…

This cross-body strap is clearly holding on for dear life, the elastic pouch has come undone and the strap at the bottom fell off just a few minutes after this.

I tied up the bag as best I could as a “field fix” and finished up the tour. Oh, how it hurt when this bag which has accompanied me on so many adventures fell off my shoulder.

As far as I’m aware, this bag isn’t for sale- and I wasn’t prepared to go on a bag hunt, especially since things were still largely shut down at this point.

A few weeks of lollygagging later and it was finally time to stitch my friend back up!

The Patient

Here you can see the clip strap is completely missing, the bottom of the elastic pouch has been torn where the clip strap fell off and is flapping in the breeeze.

Forward Fashion

As I decided to start working on this at around 10 pm, and the lighting in my apartment is abysmal, I rigged up my desk lamp on my chair and pulled out the jeweller’s visor to save my eyes some strain.

Reinforcing Attachment Point

I used a running locking suture technique here to strengthen and reinforce this mesh to reattach the clip strap

Finished Mesh Reinforcement

I ended up deciding to attach the clip strap at two points to spread out some of the tension and decrease the risk of torsion on a single running suture.

Practice Running Suture

Before working on the pieces which would be experiencing fluctuating tension risers, I wanted to try out my technique on a simple straight running suture to positively affix the clip to its strap.

Reattached Clip Strap

Before the repair, this strap was attached between the shoulder band and the elastic pouch, now the strap is affixed on a simpler surface and doesn’t put a strain on any complex joints.

Bottom of Elastic Pouch

I think this pouch is meant for things like sunglasses so I was sure to suture the bottom well to the shoulder band and added some extra threading on the bottom of the pouch to dissipate forces.

Please Don't Judge Me

And here was the last repair, and definitely the ugliest. This whole attachment point was about to fall off as the fabric was fraying away, so I did a number of passes, first running locking sutures as attachment points, then standard running to connect the pieces. This was also around 1 am so I wasn’t really focused on the aesthetics.

Looking back, I can see some errors in my stitching which I can address the next time I try something like this. Firstly, I need a better system to end my stitches- I’m only really aware of square knots used in suturing and I’m not entirely sure these will work for longer-term fabric attachments, so I’ll be looking into it for the future. Another technique I’d like to retry is making smaller gaps between each loop of the running sutures- the bottom of the elastic pouch should be fine, but it could certainly look a lot better. Aside from that, the usual goals of decreasing the variability of stitch widths and loop distances are things I always try to practice.

Now, this bag has been stitched up for a few days, and to be frank- I still haven’t used it. I would love to take it out and see how my handy-work holds up, but B.C. has decided to catch fire… So I’m stuck inside for a little while! I’ll be sure to come back here and update how the work has held up once I’ve actually given it a chance.

Thanks for joining me on this wild adventure of sewing pieces of fabric together!

Armaan