Resuscitating Wax's Tom of Finland tote as a Stumpy Buck of Finland tote

[cimorene]

Years ago Wax bought one of Finlayson's original Tom of Finland tote bags. She carried it a long time (12 years maybe?), until finally the handles wore so threadbare they were falling to pieces and there was a big and several small stains, so I confiscated it for treatment.

Washing it several times and soaking it in oxygen bleach only faded the main tea stain. But this week I finally got around to unpicking the stitches that attached the handles and sewing in new longer ones of cotton webbing (by hand because the sewing machine isn't working). I embroidered over a couple of small rust spots where there had been button pins and then sewed a zipper into the pocket. In the process, I accidentally put it down on top of a wet teabag, so it had to soak in cold water and be spot-treated with oxygen bleach, which removed the new spots. I then soaked it in some diluted lemon juice and the older tea stain faded to a faint yellowish.

See, I was going to embroider over it too, but it's much bigger than the other spots, about four inches long and two or three high. And the bag shrank a bunch when initially laundered. It's sturdy cotton canvas and it didn't occur to me to worry, but umm, it only shrank vertically, not horizontally, and so all the semi-obscene gay guys in the print became... stumpy. And Wax thinks that they will stretch out again over time when the bag is weighed down with cargo; a big embroidered patch would interfere with that.

Comments

[lobelia321]

wow what a project! Am amazed at handsewing competence

[cimorene]

I have gotten better at it with practice, but hand sewing (like this, anyway) is fundamentally really simple, it's just that it is so time consuming and requires so much patience and carefulness! I didn't bother to try really hard to make this neat and polished, because it would've taken even longer, but I did make sure the stitch lines were basically straight, which is a little more work.

[msilverstar]

Hah! That always happens to me with canvas

[cimorene]

Now that I think of it, I've never had a print that would show the aspect ratio to check by before...

[viggorlijah]

Gorgeous! There’s a crochet patch so the stitches can stretch? Honestly I like a little wear on it because it shows it’s had a good life

[cimorene]

Oh, that's a point. But I think it's faint enough that it isn't necessary!