a midway bikelog

My mom has been sewing as long as i can remember. One of my first specific clothing memories ever is of a brown velour shirt she made for me in grade school. While i also remember hating that shirt at the time, there were many other things she made for us that were great. Chief among them were the many halloween costumes she made, including a fantastic devil costume, complete with stuffed tail and horns.

She revived the halloween costume tradition with my girls, out-doing herself with wonderful ladybug, elephant, tiger, lion, and fairy outfits. This year Ella wanted to be a water nymph, which luckily turned out to be mainly a flowy blue dress. We made the costume during an early October visit, finishing most of it over a weekend. I helped out quite a bit, knowing my way around a sewing machine from earlier lessons from Mom and middle school Home-Ec class. I enjoyed the project quite a bit, and within a week i was trolling Craigslist for a sewing machine for myself. In true style, i ended up with two machines, both from the mid-to-late 50s, and each of them $50; a Singer 185 and a Pfaff 230.

The first project was to replace the rotting canvas on a porch chair, but part of the justification was always to try building a saddlebag for my bikes. Messenger bags are handy off the bike, but i hate having a sweaty back and sweaty strap lines on my shirt. I’ve been doing most of my commuting with a saddlebag for the last 3-4 years, the only problem is having to swap the two i have between bikes, so i wanted to make more. Here’s the first model i made for myself:

It’s all plain white canvas, with an orange fabric stripe. I like the style quite a lot, it’s a bit of a reaction to the plethora of black canvas bags around. Black canvas is smart: bike bags get grimy, and black looks good for a long time as it gradually fades to a charcoal grey. But i wanted something different, and i had a bit of plain white left over from the chair project, so that’s what i used. On the first day i used it, i lost a brand-new seat cover from the bag because it didn’t close very well when mostly empty. I did a couple of rounds of modifications to close up the mouth of the bag and keep things from falling out, and it works very well now, though the capacity is also reduced. It’s still a good size for average commuting loads, and i’ve added a front basket to that bike for shopping trips anyway.

I made a couple of small kid-size saddlebags next, because the kids liked my bag so much they wanted their own. These are made of Sunbrella outdoor canvas, which isn’t waterproof, but should resist fading. I added some basic straps that should hold the bag under a kid’s saddle ok, and they’ll probably work as handbags too, with a strap added.

I wanted a larger bag for myself though, so i kept playing with design ideas. I used to have a Carradice Lowsaddle bag, which is a little smaller Nelson bag, and it was a really nice size for regular commuting and light grocery trips. I got that bag used, with a ripped side panel. The previous owner included a replacement side panel so i could get it repaired, but i ended up just having the rip sewn shut rather than replace the panel, so i still had that oddly-shaped piece of canvas in a drawer at home after the bag was stolen last summer. It was a good find. Contrary to the round or trapezoidal shapes i was playing with, it was laid out like a pentagon, which gives the mouth of the bag good support, and keeps the opening relatively up once the bag is mounted. With this as a starting point, i played with the size a little (deeper) and added some side pockets and ended up with version 2:

This is a nice bag. The buckles are a little awkward, they should probably have some sort of guide to keep the straps more controlled, and the mounting point would be stronger if it were back about an inch. But overall, i like the bag a lot. The fabric seemed really bright at first, but with those atomic yellow straps, the canvas is downright understated. I assume it’ll get filthy and look like hell, but at the moment it looks great.

I don’t know if this will be any sort of serious undertaking, but i’ve had a great time with these sewing projects. My seams are getting straighter, and i’m figuring out some better techniques for planning and joining pieces. More than anything, sewing things myself has given me a real appreciation for the high quality of work in the great many sewn things we all use every day. Look at the average shirt or pair of pants and try to find an uneven seam or loose thread. It’s hard to do. Sure, there’s a lot of automation and machine work, but for many (most?) of those things there’s a person running that fabric through, and they do it extremely well, time after time.

One of the big reasons i love to make things myself is to better appreciate some of what we take for granted in daily life. You can easily cook a meal and compare it favorably or not to a restaurant meal, but things like tailoring and furniture-making and metalwork are more abstract. It’s inspiring to pick apart the pieces of something to see the thinking and skill involved, try to make my own version of it. Most of the time they’re flops because i just don’t have the knowledge or skill to do it well, but sometimes it’ll click and i end with something i like and use for a long time.