Magnifying Home Economics: Little Projects that make a whole impact

The Teaching of Clothing and Textiles (Making a Drawstring Bag)

Drawstring Bag:

What is it?

Before I start off blogging about what the first hands-on project of sewing lesson, lets start with the picture shown above, live and learn, the stories i could tell.

During sewing lesson on thursday, this quote pop up in my head whilst I was sewing my drawstring bag.

Flashback all the way to Thursday 23rd September 2010:

We were taught how to make a drawstring bag today.

Not just a simple drawstring bag which just involve straight stitches and a simple cord for the drawstring, like these pictures of drawstring bags below:

But a drawstring bag that allows a wider input of creativity, such as sewing techniques, colour contrast and co-ordination as well as the selection of different embriodery stitches.

This drawstring bag project allows the application of creativity as well as the sewing skills and techniques which all of us had acquired from Temasek Polytechnic.

During the planning and sewing of my drwatring back, the different sewing techniques begin to refresh in my head and creativity started to kick inside me again.

And so, I went to look on how I can make a drawstring bag which I can make during my free time

here are some pretty drawstring bag designs which inspired me:

Instead of an ordinary drawstring bag that is commonly seen, Dr Mok taught us how to incorporate quilting technique into the drawstring bag.

Quilting is commonly used in the making of cushion covers, quilts, mats and in bags.

Little which I expect that quilting can be incorporated into a drawstring bag.

This technique brings the overall look of the drawstring bag to a higher level.

Lets look at the quilting design using a cross-embriodery machine stitch which i had accomplished :)

How is the look :D

This quilting desgin may look simple and easy. However, it comes with precision and focus.

One difficulty which i encountered during the making of this quilting design is the embriodery stitch. During the sewing of the and cloth, i wasnt alert of the stitch length and width. Instead of 2.0 to 3.0 cm, my stitch was accidentally altered to 1.5 to 3.0 cm. Resulting in a short and compact cross-stitch.

And so, the result of this was: Unpicking. Unpicking such a small and compact cross-stitch is definitely not an easy task, thankfully justine came to my rescue as she saw me struggling to unpick the whole stitch line.

During this making process, it made me reflect.

My focus during sewing of the quilting design was fast in completion, not on alertness.

Unpicking was a good learning process for me, and so, live and to learn.

This is one story which I could tell from just this sewing lesson,

"life process is like sewing a product, it requires one to make mistakes, but moulding and improving the product during difficulty, like unpicking, it gives a extraordinary satisfaction and learning point at the end of it."

Nonetheless, I am halfway through completion of my drawstring project.
Look at the 3/4 Completed drawstring bag.