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Lately I have been seeing a lot of projects in the blogosphere where people take old clothes and turn them into new things - jeans into skirts, t-shirts into quilts, shirts to pillows, etc. I got my own inspiration for clothes "recycling" in the sale section of Old Navy. I found a button up shirt, khaki cargo pants, and cloth belts that I knew I could turn into a great messenger bag.
Here is a picture of the shirt and cargo pants (I forgot to include the belts). Nothing amazing as an outfit, but full of potential. I bought the largest size of each I could find. I wanted to have as much fabric as possible in case I made a mistake. In fact, I bought two pair of the pants, but only ended up needing one.
And here is the picture of the completed bag. I used the belts as the shoulder straps. I also sewed the belts along the sides and bottom of the bag to give it more stiffness and sturdiness. The embellishment on the front of the bag is, of course, from the shirt. I liked the idea of using the area of the shirt with buttons. A little hint that the fabric actually came from a shirt. I also liked that you could see the seams from the pants. Adds visual interest.
Here you can see one of the "innovations" I was really excited about. I cut the pants in such a way that the large side cargo pocket would become a pocket on the bag. Saved me a lot sewing! I used the shirt again to make a pocket for holding pens.
And here is the inside of the bag. This is where I used the majority of the shirt since it became the bag lining. I put two pockets on the inside. One is on the left and is made from the shirt fabric - plain pocket. The pocket on the left is a pocket from the back of the jeans. The back pockets were much flatter so I thought it would work better on the interior of the bag.
What you can't see on the inside of the bag is the material between the two layers of fabric. I put in a layer of outdoor canvas to add extra sturdiness to the bag. My mother-in-law gave me that tip and it worked great!
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