This project took its time to get completed. After a few snafus with the OEDK sewing machines, I found an old Singer heavy duty one in my house. I fired it up and it worked perfectly!

Here’s a picture of my sewing machine:

It has several years of service, but the main mechanism works great! As you can see, there is no spool of thread on the top, nor a place to put it. But inside the compartment on the top neck of the machine, there’s a wooden dowel that can be placed into the hole on the left hand side, and a spool rotates as the machine does its work.

To start, I took some measurements and then estimated the resulting size on a large piece of construction paper.

These dimensions were done keeping in mind that I would need to fold it down about an inch towards the end to remove the rough edges.

However, when I first started this project, the original stores of vinyl were depleted except for a few random parchments. With these, I made my pockets. There is one large pouch around the center of the part, which in turn holds a small pouch for pencils and a larger pouch for smaller tools. The dimensions for these are shown below!

Remember, if these seem large, its because we have to fold the edges over, give or take one inch.

Here is the finished pouch!

Another important component is the system of straps. I sewed these in a box like manner, as shown below. You can make this box larger or smaller, depending on your comfort level.

Finally, this all comes together as such:

I had so much fun with the sewing machine I embroidered my name to the bottom 🙂