Repair and Repurpose

1.  Repair

Remember the backpack that I almost lost in Edinburgh? I have not reveal its identity yet- a sturdy grey Deuter backpack. Well, the hanging loop was not sturdy apparently. After 5 years as travel companion, the bag gave up on me, the hanging loop particularly. I must have overloaded the bag too much and too often. Bad habit.

Without the hanging loop, the use of the backpack became very inconvenient. I had no help when i needed to lift up my bag, the bulky shoulder strap was the substitute instead. Cumbersome at times; panicking when the preschooler whining for immediate extra clothes from the bag. I had to adapt the old bag in a new way throughout the trip, as if it was another new bag that was without a hanging loop.

After our return, I was contemplating to replace the bag or find a way to repair the loop. It dawned at me that the small little hanging loop of a backpack was very important and I relied on it very much! I needed a backpack with hanging loop desperately. So it was timely when Agatha hosted a workshop on fixing haversack on her regular Fit it Friday Series. Gladly, I signed up and attended the workshop with my backpack.

Agatha was amazingly helpful and very well equipped with skills and tools. I was very happy with the hard work I put into the unstitching (pictures shown above, almost 30 mins to unstitch!) and restitching (pictures below). Unlike the usual clothing fabric, backpack required polyester thread and Microtex needle for such mending work. For more detail, hop over to Agatha's sharing.

The bag is now as good as new. I beamed from ear to ear.

Being able to fix a backpack, not only I gain the skill, I gain some confident in holding the needle and thread in my hand, cutting and sewing too.

So not too long after that, I attempted to repurpose one of my Hard Rock Cafe shirts (yes, I have few pieces). It was my first shirt bought by SC from Niagara Falls... Almost twenty years back (or more). I love it a lot but it is now very torn, on collar and shoulder especially.

Sentimental soul, I am.

What was I trying to make? A drawstring bag for Little Bomber as inner bag for her to keep clean towel, PE shirts and shorts, etc to bring to daycare.

Good thing is I have one to make reference with. She is using one drawstring already. But she needs more than one.

2.  Repurpose

Attempt 1: To keep the logo, I did minimum alteration- cut off the sleeves and top part of the shirt. Then sealed off the bottom of the shirt and sew the edge of the top left and right via sewing machine. Then, folded and sewed the top edge for opening. Lastly, added the drawstring for the opening. 

Simple re-purpose work. But I didn't think it was good, especially the odd shape of the bag. It was not a square or rectangle, and it was too big to fill-in for only the towel and the needed clothing too.

The irregular shape of the drawstring bag was quite disturbing me. So...

Attempt 2: Few days later, I decided to make a bold step by cutting (almost) half of the newly made drawstring bag. It would mean that the logo of the Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt on the top part of the shirt no more appearing onto a smaller size of the drawstring bag. The bottom part of the shirt was purely plain white, so I figured that I could cut out the logo accordingly and resewed the logo on the plain part.

As there was not much left of the shirt, I had to keep the "NIAGARA FALLS, NY" as top edge of the bag and folded inward.

I think this is the right size and neater. Don't you think?

I'm not lying, Little Bomber is over the moon with this drawstring bag that in her opinion, has her mama's scent.