There was a lot of great feedback from my last Cash for Clunkers post with ideas for Creatives to survive... NO, make that thrive in a recession. I thought I'd post more related less to money and more towards growing joy in life. Here are ideas that I've been referring to a lot lately and that I've figured out over a good long lifetime. Some of these ideas are adapted from books I've read, some I've discovered, and others are from creative friends who've made livings doing more insanely obscure things than me.

Good luck! It's the creatives that will help lead us to the light.

More Cash for Clunkers Tips: #10-19

10. Don’t ever ever ever let people characterize you as “broke” or “starving” and don’t ever describe yourself as those things out loud even if you are thinking it or its your "reality." If you romanticize the idea of struggling, you will be your own self-fulfilling prophecy. ”Broke” and “artist” are not synonymous unless you say they are.

Other words to eliminate from your vocabulary: "victim" (best replaced with the word “survivor”), “struggling” (best replaced with "mastering") and “trying” (ie You are a writer, you are not trying to be a writer.)

11. Grow an herb garden. Even if all you have is a tiny windowsill and a small handful of dirt. Sometimes when the world is falling apart, it helps have something nuture you as you nuture it. Grow things you can eat. Enjoy the novelty of harvesting your own food. Invite folks over to have a salad that you grew yourself. Watching the slow process it takes for a plant to grow will keep you from overbuying food or wasting food. If you kill your garden by accident, find a better place to garden, or start watering plants in the neighborhood that aren’t dying. Some easy plants to grow that are fun to eat are sweet basil and mint.

12. Get on that Martha Stewart Living tip and make something to improve your home or make a gift. A rag rug, a sock puppet, or just sew up the holes in your socks. Sure you could have a toddler in Saipan make the same thing for 99 cents, but just like gardening, there is a certain joy that is lost in crafting something with your own time and care. I like the tutorials on threadbanger for ideas of things to make. Some projects take less than 15 minutes.

13. Instead of panicking, write down ten possible solutions to the problem. Then action steps. Yay! You just made a blueprint of what to do. If you're still stuck, go to tip #15 to get help.

14. Distance yourself from complainers, self-victimizers, naysayers, trainwrecks, and energy suckers. Yes, sometimes we are related to them. Yes, there are times when friends need our help. But we can't help them if they try to cripple us with their crap. There are people who need a friend and there are people who want to pass their problems onto someone else. Set boundaries, find private time, do your thing.

15. Invite someone new to dinner with no ulterior motives. I have 1400 Facebook friends and am probably only close to 200 of them. In the isolation of working at home, I decided to start writing some of the ones on the periphery. “Hey, do you want to hang out? Can I take you to dinner?” It helps if someone you invite has expertise in a field you know nothing about because they will give you insight to life that you never considered before. Invite people over who you admire, don't invite the folks I caution against in #14.

16. Work to learn, not to earn. If your job pays well but isn’t ultimately serving or providing any insight into what you want to do with your life, it’s often better to be at a less paying job where you can learn more in your field. If you can’t afford to work to learn in your dream field, then volunteer in your dream field.

17. When meeting people who are in a position to move you forward, remember that as an artist who is in this for the long haul, you are cultivating, not hunting. I’ve realized in how irksome it is to be approached with, “Hi Kristina, can you help me with grants?” Nobody likes being constantly bilked for their time and resources, especially from strangers. I’m always happy to help friends and people who have supported me because we have relationships that have been cultivated over time.

18. Find other ways to ask for “help” besides asking for money. With every non-profit holding out their hat, donors are a little fatigued. Here are some ideas for things you can ask for that may be helpful to your art: production or administrative assistance, airline miles, food for a reception, a contact list, rehearsal space. It’s much easier for people to offer resources or things that they can afford to share than part with money.

19. If you are going to ask for money, make it a positive exchange. Let potential donors know the long-term impact their money will have and how their contributions will be honored. Offer a credit in the product you are making. Breakdown how their money might be used in logical and compelling ways (ie $10 will rent an hour of rehearsal space). Believe it or not, most people would prefer to give money to a reputable and trustworthy person who will use the contribution strategically rather than give their money to temporarily plug the holes in a sinking ship. Email pictures of your progress. Nobody is obligated to give you their money, no matter how much it will help you. So never take it for granted. Graciousness counts.

Labels: buy nothing year, the secret, vision, winnings

There are no two words more frightening to this carless Angelino than these: THE VALLEY.

Yes, the Valley, that elusive urban suburban expanse above the Getty Museum where families and other kind of proletariat live. Where eggs can be cooked on the sidewalk because temperatures soar to 300 degrees. Where pornography is birthed, edited, and sent around the world. Where the 101 North somehow becomes the 101 West (or is it the "101 East"-- why is it so confusing?).

It's the godforsaken geographic anomaly crisscrossed by so many freeways that for the last year has taunted me to buy a car and brave its streets under 2000 pound air-conditioned armor. The Valley is the boring ugly step-sister of Los Angeles proper and I still cannot navigate her after years of living here... certainly not by instinct and only with meticulous Mapquest directions that I dare not stray from so help me god.

All year, I was brave to resist getting a car as I've coaxed myself: "Kristina, don't fear the Valley, for you will never have to go to the Valley last minute. What the hell do you need to get in the Valley?"

Yesterday, I had to conquer that San Fernando beast armed with only a bus pass. Specifically, the Sherman Oaks Galleria parking lot. Worst yet. I had to conquer it at 6am.

Why GOD did I have to be in the Valley at such a godforsaken hour?

Because I booked a national commercial! Finally, that elusive residual income that lures so many actors to Hollywood (and has evaded me for so long) comes at the right time!

Usually with any kind of on location shoot, you never know the call time or location until the last minute. It's a lot like a rave. I got hints from the production guys at the fitting that we were shooting somewhere in Van Nuys in two days.

My alarms went off. EMERGENCY!! CODE VALLEY!! TRANSPORTATION EMERGENCY!! I could not afford to get lost or be late for this. I imagined myself getting off at the wrong bus stop in Glendale, not being able to tell North from South, only to get on another wrong line. Or waiting at some transfer stop in Burbank where the bus line had been unknowingly discontinued. Calling friends at 5am to help drive me over, waking them up, angering them, losing their friendship. Maybe I'd arrive at set 2 hours late, at which time my part was forfeited to the girlfriend of the key grip.

No! I had to secure transportation! And not the public kind!

It was time to follow the long anticipated action plan of what to do in what I call "Situation: The Valley."

Step 1: Find a ride from someone headed there.

At the fitting in Hollywood, I tried to charm the question to the other actors working the spot: "Hi, my name is Kristina. What's yours? So where do you live? Do you live near Silver Lake?"

Unfortunately, everyone lived on the Westside or Burbank. Or maybe, they decided that's where they lived upon the desperate smile of a stranger. I knew their faces. The fear in their eyes of the prospect of spending time alone in a car with an actor they just met. My innocent request for a ride was definitely creeping them out.

In my car-owning days when I was on a set, I'd often run into carless actors. They were characteristically the most talkative ones to the point of creepy. Often the most overcompensating and annoying. They were always the ones with the million dollar ideas whether they were unwritten screenplays they were raising money for or pyramid schemes for water filters that they thrust unsolicited onto other actors. I often wondered if they talked themselves up so much so as to warm up potential rides they'd solicit.

I had become what I've loathed. Time for Step 2.


Step 2: Find a car to borrow

When I left the fitting, I frantically texted all the friends on my mental inventory of "to borrow" cars. First my friend Chay who often walks to work and leaves her car parked, then my cousin (because blood is thicker than water), then my friend Marcus who used to be a bus person until given this car, then Chay's sister Bangbay who has loaned me her car while it's been parked at work. If none of those panned out, I could start getting creative and ask new friends for their cars. I could also try to catch a ride, though like I said, who else would be going to the godforsaken Valley and as early as 6am?

I got two no's from Chay then my cousin who both needed their cars. Marcus was a yes, but he lives all the way in Santa Monica which created the added challenge of the pick-up. I also don't know his car. What if it breaks down? What if I can't get it from him? I panicked and asked Bangbay for her car which was easier to pick up and that I knew wouldn't break down on me having driven it before.

(Yes, I got snobby about a free car to borrow.)

Bangbay came to get me the night before the shoot. I took her back to her place in her Corolla. In a very Jack and the Beanstalk-esque exchange, I traded my bus pass for her car keys. She was a trooper for busing to work so I could drive to mine.

Score! I had wheels!

I got to set more than early. I'm glad to have arrived there by car, not bus and foot because there were a specific set of signs to follow off the freeway to find the crew. Had I tried to bus there, I would not only have had to leave at 3am (I'm not sure what buses even run in LA proper at 3am), but I might have been in the dark dragging myself across along the entire mile-long perimeter or the Sherman Oaks Galleria before I could spot the film crew.

I did have a car sorrow moment when I parked Bangbay's car alongside all the other cars that belonged to the crew. Some of their cars were big, flashy, signature cars for signature personalities. The black Toyota Corolla I was driving was so practical, so modest. And it wasn't even mine. I couldn't help but remember my Harold, that big pink ego/eco-mobile and how sweet it was to park at the studios among the Hollywood types in him. How nice it was to get in and out of him like it was no big thing.

How sexy I was. But those days are gone as I attempt to rock it without the carbon emitting armor.

I checked in with the 2nd AD. I enjoyed my Non-Deductible Breakfast (set speak). Put on my costume, sat in the trailer. The manager of the pizza place we were shooting in came in the trailer and made conversation with me. He asked where I traveled from to get there. I said Silverlake. He said, "Where is Silverlake?" And I thought: "This guy lives in Sherman Oaks and does not know where Silverlake is? Who are these heathens here in the Valley!?"

I shot my scene, wrapped by noon. I headed to where Bangbay works in West LA to return her Toyota Corolla. I filled her tank. (Good Lord, gas is getting expensive again!! $27 to fill a 2/3 of a tank? I don't miss that part of owning a car.) Since it was lunchtime, I took her for lunchtime tacos.

Total cost to conquer the Valley at 6am? $33. Not bad considering I will only need to brave The Valley once every six years. Plus I'd much rather give gas and food to a friend than to a rental company.


By the way, here are the other action steps of "Situation: The Valley" had the car borrowing not work out.

Step 3: Rent a car (but so last minute, the cost with insurance and gas could easily bring the rental to over $50 for the day).

Step 4: Suck it up and take the bus up. But leave 2 days earlier than it says to on metro.net.

Step 5: Take a cab or car service. Or pay ex-reality tv star to drive me.


And another BTW... To be fair, I do know actors without cars who are not crazy. Wyatt Cenac who now lives in New York and works on the Daily Show used to get around by bike. We did the CBS showcase together and he'd come in on two wheels, get rides, and he was so cool it was no big thing. My friend Blake works constantly, was totally sweet and helpful when my car exploded and told me how to get around without a car. We share our triumphs as actors living within the machine who don't own big machines and also share our moments of Hollywood carless shame. And I also met a woman named Enci who writes about how to thrive as an actor without a car and she's also given me a lot of ideas about how to survive carless. Her production company is Rebel without a Car Productions!

Labels: hollywood wong, The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles

Can you spot the murderer?

I've been obsessed with this recent Ryan Jenkins murder tragedy as much as I've been obsessed with the whole "Of Love" dating show dynasty that VH1 has been airing for the last few years.

I've religiously followed the evolution of Surreal Life to Strange Love to Flavor of Love to spin-off to spin-off to spin-off. I've monitored my cynicism as it's grown with each sequel and spin-off. I've noticed how bored I am by what was once a shockingly bad minstrel show, secretly wanting it to get worse for my own amusement. It has been like a coke addiction that doesn't do it for me anymore. (Not that I've ever done coke before, so WTF am I talking about?)

I've been wondering for some time: "How will this vulgar reality show dynasty end?" "What is at the bottom of that barrel they've been scraping?"

I've been working on a screenplay about a reality star putting her life back together after the show she was on has wrapped. Looks like, after this week, I have to put the pen down again. Because the real world (not the reality show) has trumped fiction (or at least fictionalized non-fiction) yet again.

There are many things ironic about all of this tragedy and VH1 having to pull both shows that Ryan Jenkins was on off the air...

1. Of all the previous VH1 dating shows to have a wife beating murderer contestant... I would never have imagined it would be the show with the millionaires. Maybe one of the girls from Flavor of Love or the punks vying for love on Daisy of Love-- but the millionaires? And at that, a young handsome, Canadian millionaire. Didn't Michael Moore illuminate Canada as the land of unlocked doors?

2. I was watching the episode the week before all this happened where Ryan Jenkins is prominently featured and thought, "Wow, he's pretty smooth. If I was Megan, I'd pick him." Ack! Wrong choice!

3. I find it ironic that as a matter of taste VH1 has had the pull both shows off the air, when the actual content of both shows is actually pretty tasteless (but oh so entertaining) in itself.

4. That Jasmine Fiore (the victim) was ID'd by her breast implants. So Orwellian.

5. The messages from fans of "Megan Wants a Millionaire" have made very articulate arguments as to why the show should stay on the air on the online message boards. They include:

"So here’s a thought…maybe if it continues to air, with a little disclaimer “Have you seen this man?”, more people will know what he looks like and be able to spot him."

"I think you should air the rest of the show. Who cares what a contestant did after the show if they were not picked? Don’t start a series and then end it before we get to know what happened. I want to see who won–the other stuff is irrevelant."

"why would you do that even if he was cute he still is bad and i liked that show and now i cant watch it for a while. but plz make it air soon"

I'm curious as to what will happen to this footage of these two shows. Will getting that footage be like our generation's version of finding the shroud of Turin (basically something of cultural significance that has been lost, sorry couldn't find a better metaphor).

I'm wondering how VH1 and all the "celebrities" (or "c-listbrities") will pause and reflect before scrambling towards night club appearances and pimped out myspace pages, charging again towards that shimmer of florescent light called stardom.

Labels: reality tv, Vh1

My friend Marc Norberg took these pictures of me in Minneapolis before I left in May.

Last Friday I did a performance... an homage to one year of being broken up with car ownership. I held a picture of Harold up to the crowd and like a jilted ex-girlfriend choked through fake tears about how much I tried to make it work with him, but he was such an old mess (at 27) he just let me down time and time again. He was also a money pit and a girl like me deserves better than having to give so much of my hard earned money to a useless piece of shit. I want to fall in love with a car again (maybe a nice Japanese model, from a good factory) but am scared of getting hurt.

This Friday I do another performance with slides on an old Kodak carousel where I'll tell more stories of well intended green living that blew up (literally!) in my face.

There's one thing the carless thing has really been showing me about this city-- it's really big and really spread out and there's a whole lotta stuff in it. This morning, I caught a ride (via Facebook update) to an audition with the editor of my concert film, Tina. I caught a ride back with this guy from Craigslist (nah, don't worry, I sussed it out, it was safe) who I bought a new laptop from. I'm enjoying these free rides about town which come as fast as texting "Need a ride from Silverlake to Weho, call me if you're going that way") on my phone. Finally, I put my 1400+ Facebook friends to use as a private car service!

What I'm really seeing is a glimpse of people's lives. On their routes of life, I am a fly on the wall (or passenger in their car).

I finally got to meet my friend Rena's two daughters when she beckoned my facebook call and drove me to the beach. she put down the back seat of her SUV up for me and I sat behind her kids. I'm thinking now, that the friends I always say I want to catch up with, I may only be able to catch up with IN TRANSIT!

Labels: i'm kristina wong, The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles

The praying mantis on the bus says, "Happy one year of carless martyrdom Kristina Wong!"

That's right kids. A year ago today, I was on the side of the 405 as my pink biodiesel Mercedes was engulfed in 20 foot flames. And I thought, "Oh my god, I am so lucky to be alive."

I've made it one year without owning a car. Yes, it is possible to be carless in LA. But admittedly, it sure does help to know the city as well as I do, have very generous friends who will loan me cars in emergencies or give me rides, and also work from home most of the time and leave town half the year on tour. But yes! It is possible!

I do admit that despite the success, this has really FELT like a challenging year, but I would say that mostly has to do with the recession which hasn't been easy on everyone. Things were escalating quite rapidly in a wonderful direction last year with the CBS showcase, the South Beach Comedy Festival, the commencement speech at UCLA, really great tours, etc. But this past year has FELT much more challenging as I watch both non-profit and commercial ventures that once supported me have had their budgets decimated. And moving by foot and by bus can sometimes make me feel robbed psychologically of control. And people in LA, they need to always feel in control.

I've really spent a lot of time thinking admidst what seems like apocalyptic times... "What is it that I really need in life to make me happy?" Especially with all this recession time talk of what expenses we can cut out, I've been looking around and seeing all the clutter that's held me back.

So what is it I want? To perform, to have enough to eat and a comfortable bed, to have human contact that's meaningful, to feel like I am of benefit to other people's lives, to plunder an occasional yard sale. When it comes down to it, I'm a lot more simple than I ever thought.

I still often wonder if owning a car would at all help me "live better." Or if the cost of "convenience" would actually hinder me. I've decided that I'm going to go carless for as long as possible, or at least, until I get this new show on carlessness going. I also have been getting a lot of reading done.

It's an ongoing debate that's been oh so great for material. (Trying to do 7 minutes of new stuff on the carless life tonight at Bang Comedy Theater in West Hollywood.)

Since my "Cash for Clunkers" post, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback. I went to the library for the first time in forever and started to check out books. It was kind of mindblowing to be able to take books from the library and not worry about having to pay for them. I have been looking at this book called "Your Money or Your Life" which I thought was just a financial planning book, but what it examines on a much deeper level than how to be rich, is to ask what is it you want to accomplish emotionally with your life. It asks you to look at the financial clutter of stuff in your home-- expenses that you've made that have given you little to no satisfaction back and yet you hold onto them. And also it asks you to weigh your "life energy"-- making the point that its not worth it to have a high paying job if you feel emotionally bankrupt at the end of each day. Or if the expenses to be at that job (corporate wardrobe, nice car to roll up in), end up eating most of your income.

I've been thinking a lot about the over abundance of shit we produce as an American culture. Many of the belongings we have we don't use 95% of the time. If we lived in communities that were more inclined to sharing, we could easily find ways to share a lawnmower or a blender or bbq pit. We wouldn't have to amass so much stuff and then struggle to pawn it off at our yard sales.

There's one wonderful tactic I've discovered to get around town that I want to share with my fellow carless siblings. I put updates on Facebook telling people where I need to go and at what time and leave my number. I've gotten two rides like magic. I was in Little Ethiopia and needed a ride to the beach. Bam! I walk out of the restaurant and in ten minutes, my friend calls that she can come get me because she was already headed there. The 21st Century carpool.

Labels: The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles

Yesterday, I found out what it was like to be the crazy lady on the bus.

A woman at the bus stop was making conversation with me. She started by complimenting my heart shaped sunglasses. I decided to turn off my ipod shuffle (which was playing MP3s from T. Harv Eckler's "Secrets of a Millionaire Mind") and make conversation with her. After all, I am supposedly going through this carless martyrdom to create a show about my carless martyrdom. This discussion with this stranger was all part of my "oral history gathering."

She told me she's going through a divorce and her husband is taking the car. I explain to her that I used to have a pink Mercedes that ran on vegetable oil but it caught on fire on the 405 and I decided to go carless because of car-owning phobia and also because I travel the world half the year so no need to own a car.

Then she tells me that she's a student a UCLA. And like the overcompensating egomaniac that I am, I volunteer my story: "Oh yeah? I went to UCLA too! And last year they invited me to be the commencement speaker at the English Department graduation!"

And then she shoots me "the look." A look I've often given to other people on the bus.

It was the "THIS BITCH IS OUT OF HER MIND" look.

Can I blame her? I'm this messy haired Asian girl with heart shaped sunglasses, pulling around a suitcase filled with VHS tapes (I'd just come from converting them into DVDs at the SAG Building), yet somehow she is to believe that I'm a world traveller? I'm listening to self help recordings on how to be a millionaire (not that she would know this), I'm talking about my pink car that ran on VEGETABLE OIL, my car ownership phobia, and how I was once the commencement speaker at UCLA... and worst of all, I'm telling her all this ON THE BUS.

Why does the truth always sound like complete horseshit when told to you by a stranger on the bus?

I wasn't sure if I should keep talking at that point. Because any more truths about my life would only sound more crazy given the setting of the moving bus which already implicates unreliability and insanity in the truth teller.

"What do I do for a living? I'm a PERFORMANCE ARTIST!"

"What's my next show about? Cats! Pick-Up Artists! And Cat pee!"

"I made a yoga bag out of my old pants!"

I sat quietly in my seat, awkwardly waiting for my stop to come up, pretending I was distracted by my Ipod shuffle so I wouldn't have to talk more. I gave her a sloppy wave goodbye as I exited the bus. I don't know why I did this, perhaps to further add to the illusion of my insanity.

So ok. We can't trust every thing we hear from a stranger on the bus. Can we trust what we hear from a stranger on the plane? Can we trust what we hear as it comes out of the mouth of a stranger standing next to his pimped out ferrari? Can we trust what we hear from an established corporation with large buildings and thousands of employees across major metropolitan cities.... Like AIG?

I thought that I could trust the hipsters at Lovecraft Biofuels to sell me a good car and make good on fixing it so that it was safe to drive. I thought, Why would eco-hipsters lie and swindle me? But they did.

Can we trust any stranger in transit who tells us something?

And the most important question of all...

Why do I insist on overcompensating for my lack of car by offering up laundry lists of my previous achievements to complete strangers on the bus who are probably in the same situation as me?

Labels: The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles

I've been re-reading a couple years worth of old blog entries where all I seem to do is pine about work, how I'm trying to get more work, or how I'm recovering from work... and I've decided I need more creative stuff to share on the blog.

Now that I have a sewing machine, it's time to start a new series of blog entries where I make new things from old things! I'm calling it "Making out with Kristina Wong" but if you have a better suggestion for a title, I'm open to change.

Today! Turning an old pair of pants into a Yoga Bag! (Or tripod bag or cue stick bag...)

From this:



To this!


After what I thought was my brilliant idea alone, I discovered there are quite a few tutorials for making yoga bags from old pants online. But my yoga bag uses the existing leg, belt loops and back pocket of your pants to cut down the sewing time and is a very easy project for beginning sewers!

Ingredients:
One pair of old pants (I used old cordoroys. You can use any pants with belt loops and a backpocket. Even pants with no loops and a pocket can by used but you will have to make modifications.)
Straight needles
Sewing machine (you can handsew this project but it takes a lot longer)
Needle and thread
Good scissors
Chalk or marker

Time: Less than 2 hours (with food and bathroom breaks)


Step 1: Select a pair of pants to transform. Make sure your yoga mat can comfortably slide from the top of the waist through the entire leg of the pants.



These pants have been with me since high school! I think they were actually pants that belonged to my aunt. I loved these old cords, so much so that I wore a big hole in the ass that even my patching and pinning efforts could not save. I'd been holding onto them for years trying to figure out how I could save them.

You can always make the legs more narrow, but you can't make them more wide, so if your pants are too narrow, you will want to find a wider pair.


Check and see how easy it is to slide the mat in. Some material is "too sticky." Wool pants may get stuck to your mat. Also, check for holes in the fabric of your pants. A hole along the buttcrack is ok (hey now!), but a knee hole will need to be repaired before you do this project.



Step 2: Cut the pants in half so there are two separate legs. Cut a generous seam allowance on the leg you will use for sewing purposes.


It doesn't matter which half of the leg you use. I chose the side that was less worn out. I chose to cut the zipper part into the half I will use for the yoga bag to give me a generous seam allowance. But will trim it off later.

Save the other leg, you'll use that fabric for creating the strap and drawstring for your yoga bag.


Step 3: Put the yoga bag in the pants (in the waist down) and trim the leg from the bottom. Pinch the top of the tube to get an idea of how much you will need for it to close. Cut the bag about 3" past the mat.


Save the leg that you cut off to make the bottom of the bag. If it's too short to make the bottom of the bag, but you should have enough fabric on the other leg to make a bottom.



Step 4: Sew a giant tube that will accommodate the yoga mat.


Turn your leg inside out. Use pins and mark off a straight line from the top of the waist that meets the inside seam of the pants. Sew from the top of your pants to meet the existing leg tube. Save the fabric you cut off to create the bottom of the yoga bag.


Because of the way pants are cut, the fabric may have a curve to it, or will not match the other side evenly. So you will have to pin and sew your tube so it will have a few ripples in it. These ripples are very unnoticeable once your bag is done.


After you have created the tube, trim off the excess fabric and turn the tube inside out.

Step 5: Create the strap for the yoga bag by using the other pant leg and cut a long rectangle about 4" wide and as long as your pants length.


This will need to be a long strip, so I recommend cutting along the backside of the pants, not the seam. You will end up with part of the back pocket of the pants.

Step 6: Fold over the fabric, ugly side out, and sew along one side, then turn it inside out, save it for later.




Step 7: Create the drawstring for the yoga bag by cutting a 3" wide and approx 25" long rectangle, fold along one side, sew it, then flip it inside out. Save it for later.


Because this narrow tube is going to be tricky to turn inside out, I recommend using part of the pants that are not seamed. The fabric in the front of your pants before the pockets is ideal.

Step 8: Cut the bottom of your bag.


I used a plate that had a slightly larger circumference than the hole at the bottom to draw a perfect circle.



(In hindsight, I realized I should have used a square shape since circles are difficult to sew for beginning sewers like me)



Step 9: Pin the circle into the opening. Also pin the back strap in (it should be inside the tube) since you will sew this in also. Sew your bottom and strap in.


Remember, the back pocket of the pants will actually be used in the front of the yoga bag, so you need to align the strap so that it covers the front pocket of the pants. Also align it so that you will not later sew the top of the strap over a belt loop.


Trim the excess fabric and turn your tube inside out!


Step 10: Hand sew the top of the strap to the waistline to become another belt loop.


Some sewing machines can handle a lot of layers of fabric, but mine couldn't. So if you are able to get your machine to sew this, all the better. I sewed where my pins lay.


Step 11: Sew front pocket closed.



I used little asterisk stitches to keep the front pocket closed. Sewing the front pocket closed prevents the strap and weight of the mat from constantly pulling the pocket open.


Step 12: Weave your drawstring through the belt loops. Tie it closed! You have a yoga mat bag! Namaste!




Now let your mat and new mat bag collect dust while you avoid yoga class for several years like I have!

Labels: buy nothing year, clothing reconstruction, crafty, sex is unnecessary when you have yarn