A new traveling bag

My current overnight bag has seen better days.  Much better days.  As in ripped out zipper, not really all that use-able, better days.  I wanted something I could use as a carry-on for plane travel and just going overnight to my parent’s house.  This should fit the bill pretty well.

I checked the airline to see the biggest I could make it to meet their guidelines for a carry-on.  Those measurements were 22″ x 14″ x 9″.  I figured out the dimensions and used two upholstery fabrics, one for the outside and one for the inside.  I did not use interfacing on it, as I thought it would be sturdy enough with the upholstery fabrics.  I probably should have done a little bit of interfacing.  It is sturdy enough, it’s just a bit too floppy.

I was actually looking for floppy, or more accurately mold-able.  After Brian and I’s trip out to Yosemite/Sonoma a few years back, having luggage that doesn’t have hard sides and you can cram into spots is kinda nice.  We did not have cram-able luggage, which meant we had a carry-on bag in between us in our 2-seater convertible.  That was less than comfortable.

This was a pretty simple design, using the measurements above.  I rounded the corners, and put in a 22″ zipper.  I added bag feet and a covered bottom.  The bottom is poster board that we had sitting around.  I am hoping it will be sturdy enough.  I also added a zippered pocket on one side.

The inside has all the seams enclosed which took a little bit of hand stitching on my part.  Not too bad looking, but I’m not a huge fan of hand-stitching, nor am I all that good at it, really.

This wasn’t what I would call an easy project, but it was pretty straight-forward.  All but getting all the seams enclosed.  That took a little bit of thinking to get the seams enclosed and not screw that up and enclose everything, which is what I was set on doing at first.

Oh, and I used upholstery thread on this bad boy.  You can’t hardly break that thread, so it is good for these types of projects.  My machine doesn’t particularly like it, but I can get everything stitched up well enough.

Again, the most expensive part of this bag was all the bag hardware.  The 2+ yards of fabric was probably $10-12, the zippers were around $5 and the bag hardware was probably $20.  I think I need to go raid Goodwill’s old purses to take them apart for the hardware!

Here are the accessories:

• Luggage Tag (see it attached to the bag on the photos above?)
• Makeup Bag

Now I am all ready to go a travelin’!