We’ve spent a lot of time recently sitting around outside during mountain bike races, generally on folding chairs that we bring with us. One of these chairs, an upholstered red chair, no longer has a carry bag. This makes it somewhat awkward to carry around.

The chair.

So I thought I’d make a bag for it before the next race. I went through various ideas. First, I thought I’d make a bag like the one that came with the orange chair (which is not upholstered, but is your basic take-to-a-game chair.) Then I thought I’d modify it–have a long zipper so we wouldn’t have to wiggle the bag down over the chair. But a zipper could break under stress, not to mention adding a trip to the notions store and extra work to the project. I eventually decided to keep the drawstring at the end, and use ties so I could have a large opening and avoid the effort of squeezing a lumpy chair into a snug bag.

I still had some of the tulip-flowered sheet and plain canvas that I used for the grocery bag project. (Someday I will go back to that project and try again.) I measured, cut out the pieces I thought I needed, and got started.

Things I learned:

-Old poly-cotton percale and cotton canvas are very different weights. Using a thin fabric and a thick fabric (except when one is for a lining) makes for weird seam allowances and other problems. I already knew this, but discounted it when planning. I should pay more attention to things I “know.”

-Measure carefully. I knew I’d forgotten to allow for the drawstring casing, but if I hadn’t wrapped the partially sewn bag around the chair, I wouldn’t have realized it was that much too short. So measure carefully and check against the model frequently.

Oops. Much too short.

-Maybe think more about the materials. Did I really need to use the tulip sheet? Granted, I got the two king size sheets at a thrift store years ago and I’ve been using that material for miscellaneous projects ever since, but it’s pretty stuff and this bag really didn’t need to be pretty. It’s not as though it even goes with the chair. So… better the tulip sheet than buying new fabric or using my stash of quilting fabrics, but I could have gone to the attic for a holey white sheet or other rag. I guess I was being lazy.

-Think more about shortcuts. I didn’t really need to sew the ties from tulip fabric. I could have used ribbon that I already have on hand and saved myself some time. I did realize (in time) that I didn’t need to put a square bottom on the bag. Unlike other folding chairs whose feet meet in a neat square, this one folds up unevenly. Just sewing the bottom of the bag straight across was sufficient.

-I didn’t pay much attention to the grain of the fabric because I didn’t care that much what the bag looked like and it doesn’t need to “hang” right. But it still leads to some weirdness when ironing seam allowances and folding over hems. Again, something I “knew” but discounted.

I’m not including “how to” steps in this post because (a) you probably don’t have the same chair, (b) if you did have the same chair, you’d probably still have the bag it came with, and (c) I wouldn’t recommend making your bag the same way I did.

I do like the large opening. It makes it easier to get the chair in. And having a bag with a strap will definitely be better than dragging the chair around without a bag.

One final side note: is it just that I’ve been watching too many mysteries, or does the chair end up looking a bit like a dead body wrapped in a sheet?

Till next post.

I love to browse through images of Zentangle (TM) and Zentangle Inspired Art. Earlier in the year, for instance, I was besotted with the use of “gems” in ZIA. Mandalas (Zendalas?) are also an interesting kind of ZIA. I can run through a lot of time just looking at all the pretty pictures online.

One thing that keeps coming up when I browse people’s blogs is “the Diva’s challenge.” This comes from the popular blog “I Am the Diva”. The Diva’s weekly challenge is (generally) to do a tile with only one or two specified tangles, though some challenges don’t restrict the tangles used and instead involve some other requirement.

Now, being challenged to make something while abiding by restrictions on what can be used is a great creative challenge, so I kept thinking, “Hmm, I should try that.” This week, I decided to do so.

Challenge #361 was to celebrate Earth Day (a week ago last Sunday) by tangling on some recycled material. The Diva used the back of a frozen pizza carton. I used the back of a cracker box.

Turns out I really like the way things look in black and white on a tan background. I hadn’t tried it before. I don’t know whether I’ll do more challenges or not, but it was definitely worth doing this one.

Here is the first one, with the sunshine string.

The Diva explained that in her house, Earth Day is called “Amanda Day” because her son thought the Earth should have a name. Since “Amanda” means “beloved” (or “worthy of love”, both of which seem appropriate for the Earth) I decided to write that in the center of my second try. (I have also been messing around again with calligraphy recently.)

Circles make things more interesting.

It’s possible that some of this artistic enthusiasm stems from the problems my current writing project is giving me. I’ve had to toss most of the last couple of chapters. It’s hard to tell myself that I’m making progress, even slow progress, when I’ve just given up many hours worth of work. Hopefully next week I will be able to look at it more positively.