Clear and jelly vinyls are a hot material to work with right now. I’ve had some adorable printed vinyl for awhile now, but put off sewing it because I really didn’t know what I wanted to make with it. However, last week, I saw someone post a cute little “Travel Bag” in an online group and decided THAT was what I wanted to make (I even had some new jelly vinyl to try out too).

Unfortunately, while this is a super cute pattern, it really didn’t work out for me. For starters, my (clear, printed) vinyl was EXTREMELY sticky. I’m not sure if this is because I had purchased these prints awhile ago and they settled in together over time or if they just printed that way (there was even some transfer where the white of the printed backside touched the front of the other fabric when they were rolled together), but sewing something small WITH curves was a struggle. It also doesn’t help that I found the gusset was just a little too big and wound up with some weird puckers that just shouldn’t be there. So overall, a cute little design, but I definitely won’t be attempting it with clear vinyl again.

As for the jelly vinyl, I completely understand why everyone loves this stuff! It’s easy to work with, is just a little opaque, and comes in all sorts of fun colors. It’s a fun little product to work with and a great way to get your feet wet into sewing with vinyl.