This past winter I made a bag for my friend, Dave. I had organized his choir music, but the bag he was using was busting at the seams. After Dave stuffed his choir music in this one it, too, was busting at the seams. I knew that at some point I would need to make him another bag. While at work I was daydreaming of my sewing room while copying and pasting stuff into a spreadsheet. Then an idea hit…

Last summer I made myself a garden kneeler out of a man’s big pair of jeans. I only used one leg, though, so I still had 3/4 of a pair of jeans sitting in my material pile. As I continued to copy and paste into my spreadsheet an idea started to form. There were a few things that I had to work around, but I thought that it might just work. Finally, I sat down at the sewing machine and this is what I created:

It’s a bag! As you can see I cut the other leg off and then sewed them up.

I left everything open so that there are all kinds of pockets. Plus, I created one additional one…

Is that a pencil in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

I knew that Dave would want at least one pocket that zipped, and since the zipper was already in place all I had to do was create the pocket. Voila! Easy as cake!

These are a man’s size 46 x 18 (or at least, now they are) so it easily holds two big binders plus our two choir books. Bob wanted to get into the picture, too.

I wanted to use the suspenders as the straps for the bag, but I didn’t want them to stretch too much. I sewed some double-fold wide bias tape to the inside. They still stretch a little, but not like they did. Then I had Jay help me rivet the suspenders to the waist band of the jeans. Oh, and I also made a flannel lining for the bag. I’m not sure how practical it really will be, but I had fun making it and Dave seemed to get a kick out of it.