Aeroplane Bag in Laminate

 

I spent last weekend in Michigan at Camp Stitchalot hosted by Pink Castle Fabrics and had an absolute blast...but that's a whole nother post. Seeing as how I needed to get my machine there easily, I put together an Aeroplane Bag to tote my machine and fixins to the Hankerd Inn. The Aeroplane bag is a pattern by Sew Sweetness...get your copy here.

I thought this would be a good chance to cut into some Echino laminate I bought off an Instagram de-stash (those are terrible if you are trying to not spend money btw). I've never sewn with laminates before, and I was pretty intimidated. The Aeroplane bag is thankfully a very easy sew, and it's larger version of the bag was more than enough to tote my machine and lots of goodies. 

I had my walking foot at the ready for the laminate, but really didn't end up needing it at all. I was careful not to use pins but fusing the interfacing to the laminate is not for the faint of heart. I used Pellon Shape Flex 101 on the laminate, and as some others have suggested, just did so little by little to make sure I wasn't melting the laminate. It ended up being just fine, but I was so afraid it was going to melt. 

All of the construction of this bag was done by sewing with the wrong side of the laminate so I never had to do anything special (except not using pins). I did wuss out on the top stitching next to the zipper on the exterior, so it doesn't look as finished as I would like but at least I didn't wreck the bag in the last few steps of sewing. 

It probably took less than three hours from cutting to sewing the last seam, but I would venture a guess I spent twice as much time than needed interfacing the bag. I also omitted any additional stabilizers, I usually use either headliner fabric or By Annie's Soft and Stable as I like structured bags. Being an ignoramus about laminates, I did expect the laminate to have more structure than it does. I think the next time I use laminates, I will use same stabilizers as I do for any quilting weight cotton and skip the nerve wracking task of using fusible interfacing on them.