Zipper Purses Redux

While searching through my zippers the other day I came across a five and a half yard spool of black zipper tape that I had purchased many, many years ago. For some reason I believed that I did not have the zipper pulls that went with it. I realized that the spare zipper pulls from the other purse projects would fit this zipper tape and decided to make another bag without the benefit of the DVD or book I had borrowed for the previous projects. This is what I came up with for a pouch to hold all my extraneous electronic accessories when I am travelling.

This project was a barrel of laughs from the moment it made it into my head. I was wrong about the zipper pulls... there were about twelve scattered throughout the package but I didn't discover that until I spent about thirty sweaty minutes trying to insert one of the other zipper pulls onto this tape. I finally got just one on the tape and began to sew on the ribbon. The ribbon I had on hand was 7/8" wide rather than the 5/8" used by Mary Mulari. The ribbon came from JoAnns and was on two three yard spools by Offray. I joined the to pieces together so I would have enough length. I did the first sewing on one side of the tape and decided to check out what I had done.

The first thing I discovered was that the join for the two pieces of ribbon was now on the outside of the bag. Ugly but not disasterous. I also discovered that the zipper pull was on the wrong direction... that is, instead of pulling down from the proposed top of the bag to the bottom it was inserted so that it would open from the bottom. I decided to try to insert another zipper pull but after 45 minutes of trying I couldn't get it to work so I went to Plan B. The bottom became the top of the bag. That presented a whole other set of issues... like how to seal the top to make it the bottom. In the end I just kept sewing until I ran out of zipper, then I created a funky seam and sewed it up.

This bag is bigger than the original due the wider ribbon used. The original was about 10" x 10" while the new bag is about 12" x 12". I've tried it with all the power cords, chargers, games and extra batteries I tend to haul with me and they fit with a little to spare for other toys. So all is good... except for the ribbon join BUT if I cover it up with a weird button a viewer might believe that I meant to do it that way all along.

I wonder what the TSA will think when they search my bags next time?