Bike Bag for Daniel

What I REALLY want to blog about is a surprise for someone, which means it has to wait!  Meanwhile, this is my quick little one-hour project for today.

Daniel's biking bag from Elkhart General kicked the bucket, so I made him another with some of my left-over materials:

rip-stop nylon                        (from making a backpack)
red tie-down straps               (from making walking stilts)
cording for straps                  (newly purchased)

He wanted the plain black color (boring!), a lightweight design, and preferred low-cost. The largest items that need to fit are our tennis rackets.  The bag meets all of those requirements! ...of course using leftover materials helps the cost factor... I didn't use a pattern and I might improve on it later by exchanging out the cording.

This is the biking bag from the outside.  The flash made it look shinier than it is.
Baxter is checking the bag out for quality control :) ..

This is it, inside out. The red straps are for structure, to allow the pack to
hold a bit more weight.  I added a pocket between the straps.

And the tennis rackets fit perfectly! It cost less than $5.
I love a good success :)

Thanks for stopping in!

Zipper Replacement

Baxter the bunny decided that the zipper on Daniel's jacket would be a fun chew-toy, so the last couple evenings, I've been replacing the beloved jacket's zipper.  Unfortunately, it is tough to acquire a Nike brand zipper or pull-tab, so I did the best I could.

Pulling apart the original stitching and taking out the zipper was accomplished awhile back.  Last night, I sewed in the left side of the zipper, starting and ending by hand and using the machine for the center. Today, I did the left side entirely by hand. I found that I could get the fabric much closer to the teeth that way!

Last step is top-stitching, but I'll have to get matching thread first!

The old zipper is so long, that I can use the good half to fix Daniel's backpack. He'll still have his special Nike pull-tab after all. That will be a project for another night.

Here is the guilty bunny, who LOVES to chew on zippers.
The new zipper is above. It was tough to pick the color online, but Jo-Ann's doesn't
carry the right kind.  I guess not too many people replace zippers.

The newly fixed jacket and its happy owner!

Battle Shots!

About a month ago, Daniel came up with the perfect gift for his best friend from undergraduate... an entirely self-contained version of battle shots!  Daniel did most of the work, as it was his brilliant gift idea. Most of the connections are made with rivets, for a nice finished look. I helped sew and pick out materials. We had a great time putting it together!

The finished product... one side!

Daniel posing with our work. The pirate theme worked very well!

The entire game is self-contained.
This is how it looks all closed up.

Look how happy the birthday boy is!
The smile on his face when he opened it up
was PRICELESS!  :)

The game is all set up and ready to play!