I came home from a Christmas trip with no idea of what I needed to work on, I'd been coloring and drawing with kids the whole time. But I did remember I wanted to replace my super awesome Darth Vader bag that was stolen out of my car over the summer.
I didn't want to spend the money on another one (which I never needed in the first place), so I bought this for $6:
I took the tote bag completely apart and cut it into nice bag sized pieces. Using some remanent duck cloth I glued all of the pieces to the vinyl fabric. This was tricky, vinyl is mostly plastic and the duck cloth is heavy, I ironed on a test scrap of the bag and then got enough wrinkles out whilst melting the fusible web. After each piece I had to place it on a flat surface under a weight or they all curled up.
Then the sewing. The vinyl isn't forgiving at all and if you have to take out thread or pull too hard you will leave marks. Lots of them.
Eventually I got the bag shape I wanted though. The tote bag fabric was almost too small with the images so I used the top half for one side and the bottom for another. The Vader side wasn't quite enough and you can see marks from the original bag.
It's getting there. I was about at this point when I discovered a problem with how I was going to attach the zipper so I had to take the whole thing apart. Then the brain kicked in and I remembered to add the handles before going on in the process.
The bottom is a bit uneven but it works for me.
I was buying the zipper and saw Star Wars fabric and bought a yard.
The finished product:
I need to fix this, there was a lot of material to sew and then turn right side out. I got most of it though.
Tote bag: $6
Zipper: $3
Handles: $5
Total: $14