Time to bump this thread rather than disrupting the xenomorph reports in non-bike arts & crafts.
Two years ago, I picked up some lovely orange knock-off Cordura and decided to try my hand at making a rando bag. My little sewing machine wasn’t really up to the task - lots of broken needles, jammed thread, bad seams. And, I made some bad judgements about not reinforcing seams or trimming seam allowances too close. The bag came out about 2" shorter than I was aiming for, so it wouldn’t hit the decaleur on my bike. It fit my wife’s bike perfectly, which of course she didn’t mind. She’s really hard on her gear, and the bag’s in rough shape at this point, with back pockets blown out and a couple of the hooks for elastic closures pulled out (I used boot lace hooks). One round of repairs and reinforcements gave it an extra 6 months of life.
So, time for V2 before the bag completely disintegrated. I ordered some XPac VX21, better grommets, hooks, grosgrain (thanks to whoever it was here that pointed out SailRite). I also discovered basting tape, which makes lining up layers of technical fabric for stitching so much easier than pins! I increased the size a bit to better fit a laptop and lunch for commuting. It’s somewhere between a small and medium Swift.
Last year, my uncle picked up a heavy-duty sewing machine for a bag-making project, and he loaned it to me at Thanksgiving. It’s a Morse Super-Dial. Strictly speaking, it’s not an industrial sewing machine, just a 1950s or '60s solid steel machine built by Toyota. All it does is straight stitch with a 1/15 HP motor, but that meant that 6 layers of X-Pac were no problem. The wiring is funky - there’s a junction box that the machine and the foot pedal plug into. If you swap the plugs, the pedal isn’t in the circuit and the machine takes off full speed.
The bag came together in the evenings over the past 3 weeks. It’s not a casserole carrier, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out 
. Supplies cost roughly half an Ozette, including stockpiling extra hardware and capital investments in a better grommet setter. Obviously, since I’m here, my dithering labor is worth nothing.
