A Curvy Challenge for Your Consideration

What can this possibly be?

Are you familiar with a designer by the name of Josh Jakus?

His bag creations are all made out of a single curvy piece that zips up along itself and can be stored flat.

You've probably seen the bags before, but may not have known their origin. They appeared on the fashion scene about fifteen years ago. (Speaking of origin, I have no idea whether Mr. Jakus is the true originator of those curvy concepts; my guess would be that he's not.)

While I am intrigued by the simplistic shape of his UM bags, I'm not sure that in actual use they would be practical or user-friendly.

Josh Jakus' UM Carry Bag...

Once you get over the coolness factor, you may discover that one zipper holding a whole purse together is not ideal.

UM Carry Bag unzipped...

Perhaps it's more useful in one of the smaller pouch formats (for which I know some independent designers have come out with their own patterns).

Josh Jakus UM Bag collection...

I didn't realize until recently just how easy it is to draft a pattern for something like this (more on that later). Let me follow up that statement, however, with the fact that it may not be that easy to sew something like this.

By the way, the original website and social media accounts for Mr. Jakus are no longer accessible. I assume the photos reproduced here originally belonged to the designer; in any case, no copyright infringement is intended.

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Mr. Jakus' creations are made out of industrial wool felt. At first I thought the zipper tape was applied directly against the wrong side of the material (that is, exposed zipper tape with no lining) but I've since seen photos of the interior and the zipper is definitely sandwiched between two layers of the felt.

interior view of zipper installation on a Jakus bag...

If you can find a similar type of wool felt (maybe check out your thrift stores for old woolen blankets), the sewing part would be infinitely easier to do than attempting to make one of these curvy creations out of regular fabric that frays and needs to have a finished edge. (That said, it's always nice to have the option of something a little less bland than plain woolen felt.)

A couple of months ago, I came upon an instructable by Jenna Fizel that demonstrated the process for designing one of these bags. (Her contribution — which includes various patterns available for downloading — won the 2007 Homemade for the Holidays competition at instructables.com.)

Apparently, all you really need to do is draw a lopsided open ellipse (about eighty percent of the way to being closed) and then join the start point and end point with a straight line. Here's my attempt (the blue is the hand drawn curve; the white is the joining of the end points):

Draw an open curve and close the two ends with a straight line...

Next, cut out the shape and trace a copy of it. Cut out the traced copy. This results in two pieces that can now be taped along the straight edges, forming a symmetrical curvy shape.

Create a symmetrical template...

It's now a template to cut your material.

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I intentionally did this on a small scale to test the process. (The template shown above is about 5.5" tall.) After cutting out my scrap of fabric, I proceeded to hand baste it together, end to end onto itself, simulating what a zipper would do.

Testing the curvy challenge by sewing all the way around...

It totally worked. The bottom has a twisty parallelogram look to it. (I stuffed it with cotton before sewing it closed, so that I could see it in 3D format.)

So that proves that you can DIY your own pattern for these one of a kind curvaceous pouches. That part is easy.

Another view...

Figuring out the best way to sew a zipper along that winding, curvy edge is probably not as easy. I definitely think that these patterns call for zipper tape "by the yard". That way, you don't have to worry about getting the right length and you can also separate the tape and sew each side independently. (Alternatively, if having the whole thing unzip into a flat piece isn't that important, one could install a zipper along just a portion of the edge for a more traditional pouch.)

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I may take another kick at this with a larger test piece, with fabric on both sides. We'll see how it goes, if it goes anywhere. ;-)

Meanwhile, if you're interested in seeing how Jenna Frizel approached the challenge, go to https://www.instructables.com/Flat-Zipper-Bag-and-Wallet/ and check out her patterns.

'Til next...