Now, for the last post about our laundry room makeover, I wanted to share just a little bit of information about the clothespin hanging bag.  If you want to get caught up on this project please click here.  Or, if you want to know more about the diaper boxes that I cleaned up for storage click here.  Oh, you wanted to know more about the sink tub skirt?  Okay, click on this.  I’m sorry, you wanted to get the details on the curtains.  My bad!  Click right here for that story.  Whew!  I guess I covered quite a few projects with this little makeover.  The last one I wanted to talk about is the clothespin hanging bag.  I know, I know, you are thinking, “who uses clothespins any more?”  Well, lot’s of people that don’t live in neighborhoods that prohibit line drying.  Which I am neither for or against.  I have lined dried before, when I lived in a rental that did not have a dryer.  Lucky for us our neighbors did not get upset about seeing our unmentionables blowing in the wind.  Although, I did take care to bury them deep within the middle rows of the clothesline and behind bigger, longer items.  I didn’t want to totally skeeve them out, right?

The neighborhood I currently live in does not allow clotheslines and I am okay with that.  I love using my energy efficient machine, but even with the short amount of time it takes to dry most loads I do opt to hang up the majority of my clothing to dry.  I have two hanging bars and an adjacent closet for overflow and extra long items and they are packed with wet items twice a week.  And, a lot of times I use clothespins to hold the clothes onto the hangers.  One of my favorite tricks for my husband’s knit shirts and both of our sweaters is to pull the shoulders up until the seam line meets the edge of the hanger end.  Then I clip a clothespin in place to hold the sleeves up.  That way we don’t end up with those “bumps” in the shoulders from where the heavy wet cloth pulled against the end of the hanger.  Between little tricks like that and the need to hang large or random items, clothespins often come in handy in my laundry room.  I tried keeping them in a jar, but I found that I was always knocking it over.  I decided it was time to fix this problem.

I went back to the original group of fabrics that I had chosen to work with in the laundry room and I pulled the white with chocolate flocked dot fabric out to use along with the vintage paisley dress fabric that I had added later.

For many years I have toting around this vintage hanger from Manger Hotels.  It just has a cool, old patina, so I thought it would go well with the rest of the vintage finds in the laundry space.

After determining the size of the finished bag, according to the size of the hanger I was using, I cut two panels from the vintage paisley dress fabric for he base of the bag.  I stitched them together along both sides and the bottom.  (Please note:  If I had to do this again I would have planned for the top edge of the bag to be stitched first, along with the sides, and then the bottom to be closed up last after wrapping it around the hanger bar.  I did this backwards because I changed my mind about the design halfway through and was to lazy to rip out all the seams.)

Next I turned the bag right side out, pressed it and cut a simple crescent shape from the top down on one of the panels.  I left about 2.5 inches to either side of the cresent to attach to the hanger bar later.  This created an opening for grabbing the clothespins.  Then I laid the flocked dot piece on top of the crescent cutout and using tailor’s chalk sketched where I needed to cut a similar-sized crescent from the dotted fabric.  After marking the flocked dot fabric I made another, larger crescent shape around the one I traced from the bag base.  Leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance I cut along both lines to make the curved, collar-like detail for the top edge of the bag.  Placing the flocked dot fabric along the inside edge of the crescent opening of the bag base, right side facing the wrong side of the base, I then stitched around the opening.  After snipping the seam allowance so the curve would lay flat, I flipped the flocked dot fabric to the outside of the bag and pressed.  Using the feather stitch on my machine I ran a dark chocolate brown line around the loose edge of the curved “bib” or “collar” of flocked dot fabric, attaching it to the bag base.

To make a more pleasing view into the bag I cut a large crescent of the flocked dot fabric and placed it against the inside back of the bag base with the right side facing out.  I did not hem this piece, I just left it to hang down inside the back of the bag.  Because I did this backwards (oops!) I used a hand stitch to sew the open top pieces around the hanger bar to hold it into place.

Here is a close up of that fun vintage paisley patterned dress fabric.  I just love the squiggles, scallops and doodle flowers.

For a recap of each piece that I have created so far for the laundry room I have added these direct links: Curtain and Valance, Sink Tub Skirt, Diaper Storage Boxes and Magnet Washboard.

Whew!  It has been a lot of work and blogging, but I am done with the laundry room makeover updates for now.  Who knows, I may change my mind about it all in a few months and start over again!?!  ;o)

In the meantime, Happy Stitching!

Erika