Yes, once again I have been a little slow on the craft uptake, but I have finally tried my hand at sewing with oilcloth. I have wanted to make something with oilcloth for some time now but the impetus for my decision came when I was looking for suitable (and preferably eco-friendly) ways to transport my lunch to work and when I realised that Miss 6's old backpack was a bit small for carrying all her swimming gear to and from school swimming lessons.
The tote turned out to be a little bit on the BIG side, but Miss 6 won't let me alter it to a more suitable size. That being said, such a large bag is probably a good thing since the kids store their school uniforms and shoes in the bag during their lesson and sopping wet swimsuits and heavy, wet towels after their lesson. Miss 4 is now asking me for an identical swimming tote and I have told her I will make her one once I've had a bit of time for my sewing machine and me to recover from our struggles with the oilcloth, ha ha ha.
I am really pleased with how well my oilcloth lunch wraps turned out, although I did have some initial struggles with estimating the correct size for a wrap. My main problem was that I didn't have a sandwich handy for measurements (and nobody was needing any food so I didn't want to go and make a sandwich that would then be wasted). In the end, I used a stack of sandwich-sized serviettes as my measuring standard, LOL, and I think it worked out pretty well! And, of course, these oilcloth lunch wraps were so easy to make that I'll be making a few for my girls to use at school and kindergarten too.
I have mostly enjoyed my sewing attempts with oilcloth, but I think it would all have been easier if I had bothered to buy a Teflon-coated sewing foot for my machine or at least bothered to cover my existing sewing foot in masking tape to prevent sticking. I'm not sure what I'll make next with oilcloth (aside from another swimming tote and more sandwich wraps). Have you tried sewing with oilcloth? If so, what did you make?
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I covered a lamp shade with oil cloth. Too easy! I like the no fray aspect of it - as well as the prints and colours etc. And most of all the wipe clean aspect - with five kids I like anything I can wipe! I did try doing some glueing with it and it made the stuff go bobbly and strange so I don't advise that!
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