Self-drafted gym bag
Back in Craft & Thrift shop days, I used to occasionally come across colourful vinyl. This faux leather was never massively popular in the shop, but always felt like it would have use in some way. It was often the kind of fabric that felt fairly high quality and I enjoyed the saturated colours. Any I came across in colours that fit with my personal style, I would stash for my personal sewing use.
I liked the royal blue of this vinyl and used it in the blue Sierra tote in this post. I had similar vinyl in brown and used that for a Sierra tote as well. For the most part, my sewing machine coped with this fabric but it wasn’t the easiest in places, especially where multiple seams intersect and the fabric becomes quite bulky. The plastic-based fibre of this vinyl also made it difficult to properly press and I melted it in a couple of places before learning that lesson. In the end a combination of a pressing cloth and a heavy pressing implement (I use a vintage iron) gave me a finish I was mostly happy with.
Taking those lessons learned, I used a large piece of the blue vinyl to create this self drafted gym bag. I use ‘self drafted’ in the loosest possible sense of the phrase, it was essentially two rectangles and a circle. I like the style of the dry bags people use for water sports, where the top is turned over several times to create a water-tight seal and then clipped to prevent it unrolling and create a handle. They seem very practical and minimal, no additional hardware required. This was supposed to be a trial run, but I only had a limited amount of the vinyl so decided to just make it up in my final fabric. If it didn’t work out, I wasn’t so attached to the fabric it would be a disaster.
I knew roughly how large I wanted the bag to be, to accommodate my gym kit. I started by drawing round a dinner plate for the circular base, then adding on seam allowance. I then took length of half the circumference of the circle and drew a rectangle, using that length as the shortest side and the height as the depth of the bag. To the length I added an extra two inches, to accommodate the strips of plastic I intended to insert. These would give the top the stability they would need to fold over each other and clip closed, creating the handle. I cut two of these rectangles from the vinyl and one of the circular base.
You can see the outline of the plastic strip in the photo above. This was inserted by cutting a strip of a milk bottle to the right size and shape, then folding the fabric over it and sewing around 3 sides to hold it in place. If I’m honest, I made this plastic strip too deep, which limits the number of times the bag handles can fold over each other. Ideally I wanted 3 folds but can only manage 2, which means the corners of the bag can unfold and look flappy and untidy. At some point I would like to unpick this stitching, remove the plastic strip, cut it down to size and then resew it in place. It’s the kind of job that will only take half an hour, and yet 2 years later I have yet to get around to it.
Whilst I was inserting the plastic strip, I also added in the canvas webbing straps and gold clips. I added in a gold D ring as well, thinking this might be useful for my keys or similar. So far I haven’t used it but I like how it looks. The beauty of this fabric is that it doesn’t fray, so I didn’t need to finish the edges at all. Once the top was done, it was simply a case of sewing the side seams together and then easing the base into the bottom.
The gold clips and D rings were from Plush Addict on Etsy, I’ve bought bag supplies from them a few times and always been impressed with the quality of the hardware.
I have used this bag constantly since I made it and joined the gym, in October 2021. It’s held up really well, I thought the vinyl might chip or wear around the base over time but it hasn’t at all. I would like to go back and edit the depth of the plastic strip, in the hopes that the fold over top might work better. Writing out this blog post might be the motivation I need to finally get it done!