People make Discworlds all the time. They crochet them, they sew them, they even bake them! They do not, however, assume that a good idea is an appropriate substitute for experience and/or talent in their chosen craft. I'm not saying that I'm horrible with a sewing machine, but working with fabric has one disadvantage that knitting usually doesn't: you just cannot fix some mistakes. This means you generally should know exactly what you want to do. Once the pieces are cut, you cannot undo them. You can only redo a seam so often before it looks shabby. That's fine for bags, which are usually simple geometric shapes. Tiny plush elephants? A bit more challenging. I sewed about 10 of them, ranging from horribly disfigured creatures of the night to the stuff of nightmares. And there are lots of cute elephant patterns to use for reference! The problem wasn't so much the technique as it was the size. I'd already bought an adorable turtle plushy so I couldn't just make the elephants bigger. In the end, I did something I'm more than a bit embarrassed about: I just glued shit on. There, I said it. I believe glue and fabric aren't two things that should go together, ever. But I was starting to panick and had a deadline and decided the elephants would just have to be 2-dimensional. Oh well. At least that meant that the bag was resting on the turtle itself, which made it a little bit bigger. It's still tiny, but maybe just big enough for a pair of mittens in progress. Maybe.
The inside of the bag has two pockets for needles and various stuff, plus the planet XXX on the bottom. I only later realized that it's actually XXXX. It really helps to look up book references if you read said book 2 years ago...
It's just about impossible to make a round map fit on a long square with any accuracy at all. I meant to sew the mountain range to the blue part as well, but then noticed I kind of like the 3D effect of it standing up even when the bag is closed. It's made from felt so there should be no fraying:
I couldn't bring myself to take photos of the disfigured elephants. These ones only have 2 legs each, but at least the ears make them somewhat recognisable. I experimented with horns, but they looked kind of odd. This is definitely the evil one, just look at that evil eye:
Maybe he's just grumpy. And this is my favourite. He looks almost like I wanted them to look originally. You know, just slighty worse:
I had planned to embroider the map onto the green part. I have access to a cheap Singer Edition which I believe was purchased at Aldi. Which really tells you all you need to know. Suffice to say that didn't really work out either, so I drew stuff on with a pen. I try not to think about it too much.
It still turned out alright I guess. The recipient seemed to like it, which is really the only thing that counts in the end.
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