Fear of light coloured fabric - drawstring pouch

This is most likely due to my upbringing. My mother is a frugal woman, possibly due to being a single mother to 9 children when she was in her late 30's. Her choice of fabric is never white if she can help it. White gets dirty easily and costs money to clean. Her motto - if your outfit doesn't look dirty, you can wear it one more day.

When I choose fabric for my bags, I find myself consciously avoiding white fabric even though I won't be the person using the bag. When I was selling at craft markets, I did notice older women tend to shun the light coloured fabric. So it's not just my mother. The younger ladies? They went for what appealed to them.

When I used the red and pink floral on light background fabric, I did wonder if I could sell it. As it turned out, it sold pretty quick.

Green floral reversible drawstring bag

I wanted to show you this green floral fabric combination I chose for my Perfect Size Reversible Lunchtime Pouch. This green is the perfect kind of green I so love. It has a little lemon and kind of glows. I call it yellow green. I can't explain it but everytime I see fabric that has this yellow green, I go weak in the knees and buy a whole bunch even though I don't need it.

When you look at the bag from the lining side, you don't get a single hint how colourful the outer fabric is. It's like two completely different pouches. I dare say this fabric combo is a good example for a reversible drawstring pouch!

Oh, I got very lucky to be able to find the dark green drawstring. When I look closely at it, I saw a hint of yellow and that closed the deal.

You see the wooden stand I use to pose the pouches on? It's something I got from Daiso for $2 but it's now missing one leg. I still use it and hope no one notices one leg is missing!

Polka dots drawstring pouch

I think these fabric choices for my Perfect Size Reversible Lunchtime Pouch are my 2nd favourite. I love how the exterior fabric is also polka dotted but it is so subtle - tiny white dots against a brilliant blue background. Usually I would not overdose on polka dots but the white dots really blend in so I went for a explosive polka dotted lining.

I have bought fabric bags in the past where I notice the lining is usually made of an inferior fabric. I'm just guessing that the person who made the bag thinks the lining isn't visible, so why use a good quality fabric? Well, as someone who makes my own bag, I feel it's worthwhile to use good quality fabric for the lining. The lining takes a lot of abuse.

My lunchtime pouch is designed to be reversible. But I wonder how many people really use it reversed. For me, I decide right from the start which is my exterior so I don't use it reversible. But it's a nice option to have. When I was selling these at craft markets, I would use the reversible option as a selling point, and that usually seals the deal.

My first drawstring bag pattern

It has been nearly 4 years since I published my first bag pattern - the Perfect Size Reversible Lunchtime Pouch. I have one terrible regret.

I used Red Rose Farm fabric for the 4 samples I created for the photo shoot. I was quite meticulous in choosing the outer fabric and the lining. It was a lot of fun for me especially because I love flower fabric.

My regret? I sold 3 of the pouches at a craft market. In those days, I was very active selling at craft markets and the pressure of producing stock must have been great for me to part with these pouches.

My lunchtime pouches have round bottoms and I chose a sturdier fabric. I think I used twill and canvas cotton.

I almost forgot how I searched everywhere for different coloured drawstirngs to match the pouches.

This first pattern of mine will always have a place in my heart. I'm just glad I kept the one with the big rose. I will take it to my grave.

History of Projects By Jane Bag Patterns

I started blogging my bag making adventures in September 2007.  I was a real green horn when I started. I had no clear vision of what I wanted to achieve. I merely cared about recording my bag making journey which sort of was what prompted hubs to get me to start blogging. He saw me painstakingly record my bag making journey in a note book and suggested I do it on Blogger. Let me just say this. I was quite resistant at first. And then I got hooked.

I loved blogging about my bag making and having benefitted from online tutorials, I wanted to give back and created several free bag tutes myself. The response from readers was incredible and I kept getting requests for more and more tutorials.

From 2009, I started selling my handmade bags at craft markets. Producing stock on top of blogging kept me really busy. I was also sickish since end of 2007 with an illness that left me feeling exhausted. Blogging, making and selling bags kept me sane and alive. Eventually my condition became manageable and I stopped feeling exhausted.

End of 2010, I produced my first bag pattern which I intended to sell. But I was too shy about it and didn't push myself to market it. My first pattern was written in Word and I felt it wasn't the best software to produce bag patterns. One day I confided in a blog reader that I had a pattern I wanted to sell and one thing led to another and she tested it for me. She made the pouch successfully and I was going to start selling it on Etsy but I held back.

I thought long and hard about it and decided I should get a better software that could draw more complicated bag patterns. After looking around for a while, I realised that most software cost a lot of money. I wasn't confident I could recoup the investment. I mean how many patterns would I need to sell just to get back the money on the software alone? Finally I decided I would get the cheapest software available which turned out to be Coreldraw.

Coreldraw is very hard to learn and I struggled with it until one day I was able to produce my bag pattern. Finally in June 2011, I published my first bag pattern for sale - Perfect Size Reversible Lunchtime Pouch.

I waited and waited for over an hour and no one bought it. Of course it was silly to expect to make a sale right away but I felt I needed some validation and also to prove to hubs that I hadn't wasted his money and my thousands of hours.

And then it happened. I was checking my email all the time and the first sale came in. I will always treasure that precious moment. I can't describe how I felt. But it felt real good. I think I must have screamed and screamed. And then screamed some more.

I went on to publish several bag patterns using Coreldraw until 2013 when I coughed up the cash and bought Adobe Indesign and Illustrator. I felt that Coreldraw was holding me back and wanted to use a better software.

Indesign and Illustrator took months to learn. If Coreldraw was hard, Indesign and Illustrator was worse. I couldn't afford to pay for classes so I ploughed through library guide books. Eventually I knew enough to produce a few patterns using this new software.

Around 2014, I used Illustrator and watcom tablet to create applique for sale. I put 2 for sale and made a few sales. I was too busy with my real life to produce more applique and finally I felt having 2 applique for sale was just silly. So I took them off the market and it was only this year 2015 when I could find the time to produce more applique. Finally I put the completed applique for sale. I was in the midst of producing more applique and I have several in progress when I hurt my right arm. I am right handed.

As of now I have to recuperate and wait for my arm to heal. I don't know how long it will take. It frightens me a little my arm may never be the same. I have so many more exciting patterns to produce. I can't wait to get back to making them.

For more of my bag patterns and applique patterns, go to my Etsy shop here.