One of my favorite things about Portland, Oregon is how bike friendly it is. Bicycle Magazine calls it the no. 1 cycling city in America. It's not just a way to get around here, but also a fantastic system of routes and paths, a community, and a culture. In our house, we choose not to have a car and use bicycles as our main mode of transportation, and it's just great.
A good friend of mine is also a big gear-head. He collects old bikes and chops them up into new bikes, and is my go to guy for any major repairs or upgrades to our current bikes. He recently bought a used guitar that came with a pretty nasty case. It was old, worn, and icky, so he asked me if I could clean it up, maybe add some style to it, fix up the worn spot inside, and replace the straps so that he could wear it while biking.
Once I got a good look at it, though, I realized that it just needed to be replaced. This ended up being a massive project, requiring hours and hours of work and I probably never would have finished it if I hadn't seen this challenge. I thought my idea was fitting, so I pushed myself to meet the deadline. First, I carefully dissected the nasty thing (I quickly discovered that the previous owner had cats who liked to "mark") and made up some pattern pieces and got to work.
The original bag:
I thought the new bag should have a strong bike theme, so I collected a bunch of used bike parts. I had a chain, a tire, a couple of tubes, some reflectors, cogs, and an entire wheel to work with. (Recycling and re-purposing is another strong theme here) Since everything was used it was filthy and everything had to be cleaned.
/\ The tire on the front is made from spokes I took from the tire I had. The tire is an innertube that I sewed down to the pocket.
/\ The key on the ring is from an old bike lock I lost last summer. I drilled holes in the four corners of each reflector and hand sewed them on. The handles are more tube that has been sewn. I was really happy with how well the tube worked as a material, and I know I'm going to using them again. (just have to wait for someone to get a flat
) Where the green carabiner is is also a little flap for attaching a clip on bike light.
The chain bit here took
forever to do! It almost made me crazy. I hand stitched down all those chain links so that you wouldn't be able to see the stitches on the outside.
The bottom is a piece of tire. It was probably was the hardest part to sew, but the thick rubber does a great job of protecting the guitar when you set it down.
The inside is a pretty blue. see how the colors of the bag match the colors of the scenery? neato
I free motion quilted two layers of thick batting for the lining. I made bikes and the word "bike" all over. For the head of the bag, where it had gotten worn on the old one, I used a layer of vinyl to protect it.
[img=http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6500/vinylue0.th.jpg]http://The back:
Inside the front pocket, there are smaller pockets to hold his tuning fork and guitar picks. I added in a little vinyl pouch to hold his picks, too.
That's some tiny applique!
I spent so much time and effort on this thing it feels really great to share it! I gave the bag to him last night and he loved it!
Thanks!
