Gig bags are soft fabric bags for musical instruments that you use just for casual carrying, when you don’t have to worry about serious wear and tear on the instrument. They are usually padded.

I decided to make a gig bag for my psaltery for Pennsic. See Hoping for Pennsic this year! It is way ahead of time, but I can also use it before then (if I get it finished before then!), plus I really want to be sewing something. But most of my other projects are still awaiting their linen and also the Viking garb pattern books that I loaned to my friend Lady Babette.

In my fabric stash are many remnants, and I like the upholstery fabrics especially. They are only affordable on my budget once they hit clearance as remnants. I find them on clearance sales at fabric stores, and two of them are serving nicely for the gig bag’s outer layer and lining:

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That last photo shows a rough cut of the inner and outer layers, along with two layers of polyfill between them, which will pad the case. Here’s another shot of the outside fabric:

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Of course, Ophelia has to ‘help.’

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The pattern of the outer fabric goes nicely with the rosette (the center hole) of the psaltery. The lining is waterproof, but also has been a pain to work with because of the polyfill padding material. They grab each other and make it hard to align all the layers correctly. So I have had to do numerous re-cuts. The good thing is that it is over-sized so that even with numerous additional trims, the psaltery still has plenty of room in there. 🙂

Finally, this morning, I got one side all lined up, right sides facing each other, so that I could start putting on the bias-cut seam binding. The binding is wide, thankfully, because it is intended for quilts.

I had the binding on hand because, last year around this time, Halle Snyder and I were going to make a gig bag for my purple harp. Its manufacturer’s gig bag was out of stock, and I had no case for it at all. But before we could start making up the harp gig bag, the commercial one became available and I went with that one instead.

 

black seam tape inside bag
black seam tape
black seam tape

Getting through all those heavy layers by hand is quite difficult, which is why I’m taking this break! 🙂 But trying to do it on my machine would be impossible.

I will post work-in-progress photos from time-to-time. But it will be slow going…

I used another upholstery remnant last spring for my archery gear: a bow case and accessory bag. The bow case is self-lined and closed with Velcro. The fabric is all-weather and rain-proof.

at home 2018

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By the way, this morning at 10am EST, it was 8 degrees F here in central Ohio USA. Since then it has gone down to 4 F. So the additional 3 inches of snow we got yesterday, on top of however very many inches we already had, are definitely not going to melt today. Oh, joy! 😛 Another good day to spend inside!