Urban explorer's kit bag, again

 This picture shows the placement of the embroidered patches on the outer fabric for the Urban Explorer's Kit Bag. Instructions for making the patches and the bag will be available as a free PDF download at the end of the project, so please keep coming back to this blog to find out where you can download it.

The next feature of the kit bag is a small pocket in the lining of the bag. The boy in The Lost Thing keeps his notebook and pen in the internal pocket, and you can too, unless you prefer to keep your smartphone or music player in it instead. This pocket is simply stitched into position on the lining fabric while it is still flat, with a hand-stitched hem along the top edge.

Steampunk art

One of my favourite steampunk-style artists is Don Stewart, a medical doctor turned creator of whimsical pen-and-ink drawings. The highly detailed images are made up of layers of mechanical objects and other items related to the subject of the drawing; check out his gallery for examples like the Fire Engine, Stagecoach or Time Flies.

If you like Don's work, consider buying a print for your wall. He's just released a new work called Follow Me that features an infantry soldier comprising guns and other war machines. Half the proceeds from sales of this print will go to help the recovery of wounded war veterans.

Urban explorer's patches II

Scrabbled through my fabric stash and picked out a few fabrics for the patches of the Urban Explorer's Kit Bag. There's some beige linen, spotted red cotton, a piece of faded chambray and a scrap of yellow cotton print.

 First step is to use fusible interfacing as a stabiliser and iron it onto the back of the fabrics, then cut out the shapes roughly.

 I'm using a water-soluble fabric marker to trace design features onto the fabric before embroidering the details.

It's important to remove the marker using a damp cloth before you press the patches. Apart from that, these are ready to be stitched onto the bag. Templates and full instructions for the Urban Explorer's Kit Bag will be available as a PDF download when the project is finished, so please keep reading the blog to find out where you can get it.

Urban explorer's patches

The first step in creating the kit bag is to make up some of the cool patches that adorn the outside of the bag. Templates and instructions for the ones I'm making will be included in the downloadable instruction sheets at the end of the project.

If you're not keen on making your own patches and doing your own embroidery, you could collect vintage patches from charity shops; or you might already have a collection of souvenir patches from a recent holiday that you could use.

The patch at left, for example, is one I bought at the Buffalo Naval Park in western New York state. I chose it as my souvenir because the open book, pen and keys mean it's the insignia for a media officer on a ship (the closest I could get to a writer and editor—my day job).

The patches I'm designing for the Urban Explorer's Kit Bag are more cartoonish than this one. There's a groovy "peace" symbol; a rectangle that has a date on it (Shaun uses 1974 in the illustrations—maybe because that's the year he was born—I've picked 2012); a label with a short message or name and address; and a wiggly arrow like the ones in The Lost Thing.

Urban explorer's kit bag

This week's project is partly based on a sailor's kit bag, and will be similar to the one the boy is carrying in the film trailer for The Lost Thing in my previous post. I'll show you pictures of it as I make it, and at the end of the project I'll give you a link to download a free PDF of the full pattern and instructions.

Today I'm starting to gather some of the bits and pieces I think I'll need for the project, and drawing up some sketches and plans in my visual journal. I've started a fresh journal just for this Steampunk Style blog, and I'll be sharing some of the pages from it in these posts.

A visual journal is a great tool for a crafty person: you can paste in pictures, draw sketches of your ideas and even tape swatches of fabric and other materials in it. As well as helping you work out what you want to do next, it makes a great record of the project when you're finished, or an aide memoire if you ever want to make it again.

If you'd like to learn more about using a visual journal, check out my friend Sharon's online class.

Steampunk is a combination of nineteenth-century style and science fantasy fiction, growing out of the novels of writers such as Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and now with its own genre of modern fiction, movies and culture. The mechanical future, the passage and measurement of time (and the possibility of travelling through it) all figure heavily in the imagery.

Steampunk style is not just for cosplay fanatics. With its vintage nostalgia and romantic imagination, it’s also attractive to those who simply want to celebrate the past as we move into a precarious future. Steampunk uses elements of romantic, arts and crafts, art nouveau and art deco style. The related Dieselpunk movement brings the look into the first half of the twentieth century—aviators’ uniforms, vintage cars and Gatsby-esque parties.

Examples of steampunk style are making their way into popular culture: for example, the movie Hugo; Shaun Tan's book and animated short, The Lost Thing (see the trailer below); Tim Storrier’s 2012 Archibald Prize-winning portrait; and homewares.

I'm an author and editor of craft books and a keen maker of all sorts of projects for fashion and home decor. I think steampunk style is the next big thing and I've started this blog to share some of my ideas, discoveries and craft project designs with you.

So strap on your goggles and gauntlets and come for a ride!