Shake Your Tail Feather!

Late last night I had a tail bag epiphany. Ok, technically it was really, really, really early this morning, but anyway that's not the point. The point is, I was trying to think of a way to make the tie tabs stronger on the tail bags I'm making, because that seems to be the first thing to blow out since they bear all of the tail weight once the bag is in place. I started GoodSearching around (trust me, this gal uses Google plenty, but GoodSearch is always my first choice because it helps raise funds for a local non-profit organization near and dear to my heart...but I digress) and found some patterns for drawstring bags. What an awesome idea!!! The strings are much stronger because they're super reinforced, as is the neck of the bag. This is what I came up with on the first go-round (I'm totally in love with the horse print fabric, so I tucked plenty away to make some pillows, too).

 
Why didn't someone else think of this? Oh wait. Ok, ok, so someone beat me to the punch long ago. I guess I just always used the trusty two-tab lycra tail bags any time I've actually needed them, which hasn't been very often at all, and never had reason to look any further. But that's quite alright, because my eyes have now been open to a whole new world of exciting options!

I performed several trial runs last night to perfect my pattern and ran it past the Mister this morning to get his input - he's a more technical thinker, whereas I'm more an "oh look at the pretty, shiny stuff" kind of thinker - and improved my design. I sprinted off to my fabric stash, pulled out a little something in red and quickly cut enough to make four 36 inch long bags. Then, I zipped off to stitch them together and voila, here's what we have so far.

Keep in mind that I've only made bags so far from the fabric I have on hand. Now that I have a specific design ready to go, it's time to start shopping for the the most ideal textiles - yay, shopping!!! I just can't wait to try out one of these sparkly red ones on a dandy little mule tonight and see how it looks. I'm sure it will do nothing but enhance his masculine features for sure. ;~)