ClothesPin Bag

This is my old clothespin bag.  It's in very rough shape. I've abused it by leaving it out in the rain, allowing the grommets to rust and as it became torn from the weight of too many clothespins in it and my frustration with the too small opening, it has lots of rips and frays on it. So I decided it's time to make a new one.

Before making one, I thought I would peruse the usual places like Google Images, Pinterest and Etsy (my top three places for inspiration) to see what could be found.  I noticed a definite trend in using a hanger to make a bag. They were very cute but not what I wanted.  Which brought me to the very question...what did I want? 

I needed a bag that had a large enough opening so when I stuck my hand in, I could pull out a handful of pins, not just one or two at a time.  I wanted it to hang over my freshly updated clothes posts (thanks to my wonderful husband's handywork), not on the clotheslines where it would make the ropes sag. I also wanted it to have ties to tie it to a basket so it stood up, not flop over.

So after researching bags, I came up with this. It is inspired by a tutorial I found online from 2 Little Hooligans and you can find her instructions here.  I liked her bag a lot. However, I needed mine to be sturdy and a little larger so I added an inch or so, put in some stabilizer and lined it. I also took out the drawstring ties and added elastic instead.  I did not want to deal with opening it up every time I wanted to use it.  So here is my version of her bag. 

 While making it, I took photos all along the way.  I want to turn it into a tutorial of my own, just for the practice in making them.  I've always wanted to try my hand at it. I just hope she won't mind. So here is the link to my first crack at a tutorial. I hope you like it.


On a separate note, Pat Sloan is doing a challenge over on her blog to sew something every day. So I think this qualifies as sewing something for the first day of July (we well see if we can meet the challenge again tomorrow). Here is a link to her page where she talks about it.