I knew that to make my ideal bag, I would need to make a prototype. But it had been nearly 20 years since I last sewed regularly. I was the owner of my mom's sewing machine from the 70s, though it remained folded in its table for many years.

But I ordered some fabric from Amazon to do some test runs and realized it was a bit like riding a bicycle. I remembered all the basics of construction. All the little details, like installing zippers and sewing curves, however, were lost to the decades in my brain. Thank goodness for YouTube tutorials! I whipped up my first bag with a lot of cursing, seam ripping, and broken needless. But eventually I had a prototype in my hands that showed me that my idea could really work.

And the knowledge that I needed to buy a new sewing machine, pronto, if I wanted to sew the thickness these bags required.

#idealtoreal #firststitch