little (huge, actually) drummer boy

This is the closest I will come to a tutorial in the near future.  Get ready!

Marshall practicing his paradiddles

So, music has been on my mind lately, and even more in my day to day schedule.  I love playing for musicals, and I got the opportunity to play for the upcoming show at Hilltop High School.  Come to think of it, I'm not just playing piano for it, I'm the musical director (oooh! aaaah!) for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  That's the name of the show...I'm not playing the piano during an actual spelling bee.
As the musical director, I get to assemble a pit orchestra, and luckily for me, this show only has parts for about six other players.  I was able to find them all, and we have a really great sounding orchestra.  A key component to that group is our drummer, none other than the...(drumroll please....) Chris Holz - my lovely husband!  Yes...you read that right.  He's our drummer, and he's great!
For his world premier debut as a professional drummer, he had to get some gear (check!) and he also needed me to sew him a little somethinsomethin.  What did I make for him?  An animal print spandex onesie for all his 80's rock gigs?  A grunge rock headband with hair extensions?

A stick bag.  To keep all of his drum sticks, mallets, music, and (as every good musician knows) pencils.

This is what I started with:

 The grey material was the bottom of a set of Ikea curtains that came wayyyyyy too long that I chopped off.  It's a canvas material.  Very masculine.

Some airplane fabric that I wanted to use as an accent.  Didn't use it.

A package of red bias tape.

Extra bonus: the curtain tie backs, which I turned into the straps for the bag!

 one of the tie backs, cut in half

one edge was finished (hemmed) and

one edge was not.

ENTER: bias tape!  

(below, you can see both edges.  I wanted to get rid of that raw edge on top)

 Ironing the bias tape around the edge you want to use it on is a must!

The only other time I tried bias tape I was frustrated because it was very wiley and didn't like staying in one place.  I don't think I  ironed it.  I was impatient and just wanted to finish something...no good.  It didn't want to stay under my presser foot when it was time to sew.  

THIS time, the iron made everything different.  I didn't even have to pin it!

 bias tape sewed onto raw edge = no more raw edge

this was a breakthrough for me, folks.

A BREAKTHROUGH!

Construction: I basically made a big flat bag with one big pocket all across the middle, which I then separated into different sized pockets.  Not rocket science here.  Then the "bag" really just folds up the middle and ties to close.  He's not traveling great distances with it.  It's basically going from gig to gig, and he also wanted it to hang on one of the drums (the floor tom) so he could access different sticks mid-song(common occurrence in musicals).

I made the bag a bit too big, as all his sticks fit on one side of the bag, but then I realized I could make the other side just for music and pencils!  Isn't it lovely?

The pencil slots were just a ribbon sewn into a loop, then sewn down to the bag through the middle of the loop, making two slots for a pencil.  And to make sure they won't fall out, I made them semi-tight, and with two anchor points, they're not going to just slide out.  Kind of an after thought, but a darn good one!

left side

 right side

cute little drummer boy 

(phone picture = blurry)

All in all, the project took about an hour, and I didn't have to go to the store AT ALL, from conception to completion.  So I was quite impressed with myself.  Chris likes it too.  But he did tell me he wants me to find a pattern for a leopard print unitard. :)  I'll keep everyone posted on that.

p.s. if you made it this far, you deserve a round of applause!
p.p.s. come see the show!