Step by almost every step bag

I had a bunch of old fabric in my basement, these are just some of the pieces I had. I chose to use that roll of yellow along with a patterned print I was going to use for a skit a while ago. Never got to that project though. My inspiration was a bag that my sister owns. I checked it out and figured out the pattern for it and decided to feature it on my blog. The bag is a pretty laid back design so I figured that it's a good design to just use any fabric with a pattern to finally use it.













This is the basic pattern of the bag. There is also a small rectangular piece, but it can basically be any size as long as the measurement of the base of the main pattern is slightly larger than the perimeter of the small rectangle.




To get mathematical... the base of the main pattern is A


2A needs to be greater than or equal to the perimeter










Cut out the pattern from the fabric. Make sure to cut two of the main design.


















Sew the bottom of the main pattern to the side of the rectangle. Do this on the other side. Make sure that you center the pattern so that equal amounts touch the rectangle so that the 2 main patterns meet at the middle of the smaller side of the rectangle. Sew the seam between the 2 main patterns on both sides.





This is only one part of the bag. You need to make another one of these. Preferably out of a different color. Then sew the right sides together and flip the bag inside out. The last step is to sew the two straps together to make a loop strap. I haven't actually done this yet so I don't have a picture.

Fourth Exercise

Do people actually care about helping out the environment, or are they just following the new fad to "go green"? It seems to me that people have started to recycle and become conscious of the things they throw out or the energy they use now that advertisers, celebrities, and other influences have told them to. Does anyone really care? In this article, they argue that people only found out about global warming because a celebrity made a movie and the media picked up this story. CLICK I'm pretty sure that this is the case. Media and merchandiser have latched on to the stories of the polar bears and what celebrities have been doing to make a profit.

My little step sister started caring about what she wore last year and would buy so many outfits. Among the accessories to go with her clothes was a bag with a peace sign and the words recycle and going green. She obviously didn't believe in recycling and conserving when she put that bag in the give away pile along with the other clothes she wore for a month. She was doing the right thing by not trashing the clothes and donating them, but she didn't even wear them long enough to wear them out to a point where someone would donate them. The trend that made that bag for my step sister probably didn't even donate profits to an organization to help the environment.

I don't see many bags with the recycling symbol around campus. Do people not care anymore? These celebrities seem to care. But the question is, would we care if they did not? There are the few people that have been die hard environmentalists and tried to support the movement for a long time. I guess I shouldn't complain about people bandwagoning on something actually worth while. This fad probably saved a couple of land fills from being created. O well.

Third Exercise

I recently discovered an article about wasteful stores throwing out bags of never-before-worn clothing that they slashed holes in so that others wouldn't wear them. This story is biased towards the consumers that find this appalling but really, who would care if this was written in the point of view of the major corporations. I don't think it would even be printed, it seemed like they wanted to hide this wastefulness. The way I see the situation is the big corporations couldn't sell their stock so they dumped it in the trash because they thought it would be easier to do rather than give it to charity. They probably could have promoted their product by saying "Hey, we did something kind and donated to charity" but took the other path and wasted. The reason I think they did that was so that their upstanding brand name wouldn't be associated with charity cases which seems really cruel to me. I think that if the people in the article were really thinking, they would have taken the ripped up clothing and done cool things with it like designed new clothes. That's what I would have done at least. I don't live in NY so I can't take this prime opportunity. The people that found these bags could even start up the torn up trend again. :) CLICK HERE TO VIEW ARTICLE

Second exercise

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-grayson/eco-etiquette-how-can-i-r_b_637415.html

http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20060511/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-%E2%80%A6-old-shoes

These two webposts are about the reusing of shoes. One focus' mainly on flip flops while the other features shoes in general. Flip flops are quite possibly the best shoe to wear in the summer but the worst quality. We all have them especially after visiting Old Navy for their crazy flip flop sale when everyone buys a pair in each color. Mentioned on the one site are many ideas on how to reuse these flimsy shoes. The other site doesn't recomend ideas on how to reuse the shoes, just mainly ways to prevent from wasting them. There is user generated content that poses possible ideas.

My favorite ways to reuse flip flops and shoes:

making a door mat out of cut up pieces of flip flops

nailing them to a tree for bird nests

making slippers with the flip flops as the soles

homemade stamps

These websites have the topic of some how recycling shoes but one puts much emphasis on the ecosystematic reprocusions involved with disposing of flip flops incorrectly. The other site generally wanted to know what to do with thier old shoes. I think everyone should make sure that they donate their shoes to the less fortunate and try to reuse them as much as possible.