The Really Quite Huge Scroll Duffle Bag

Click on the pictures for larger versions.
Page may take some time to load.

What you see before you is a bathtub cover.  It's used to keep the tub water warm for the next person.  It's a Japanese thing and Japanese tubs are about 3 foot square.

In between the slats was rubber of some sort that DID NOT want to have strings through it, but with the help of my awl and his trusty sidekick Mr. Chopstick, we pushed those suckers though.  Something like 40 holes for just one side of that thing.  That took around an hour.

Ahh, the Almighty Grill Iron.   What a wonderful thing. Once I had decided that I could use the tub cover, I needed something to secure to either end to keep it round.  This was PERFECT!  I didn't even know how perfect till later.  It came with the metal plate and a metal grid (to put yer meat on for grillin!) for under 300yen!  I added the holes with my awl and getting the strings though was another long and troublesome procedure.  BUT those things are going NOWHERE, they're on for good and should be able to take quite the beating.

This is just another pic of the top.  Of course its not tied around all the way, or how would I get my swag into the bag?

Suddenly I feel like watching "The Fly"

Finally we get to see the grillin grid.  I just glued the cotton on.  I drew the lines on to make it look like wrapped paper.  Got a little sloppy with that actually, want to redo it.

That mess of strings is the ties from the tupperware and the strings that will tie the grid to the metal pan later.

Hard to recognize them but these are the top parts to the metal grillin grids.  Covered them with white cotton, with a hole in the middle.  The black thing is tupperware.  It has 4 holes in the bottom of it and its tied to the grid.  That's why the white cotton has to have a hole in the middle.

It is by far not the best thing I could have done to make the dowel that the scroll wraps around BUT now the ends are 2 extra pockets.  I just couldn't resist that. EDIT: I later changed those to two canisters that looked more like a dowel and were still end containers.

Three hours in the sewing room later...

Ok, so it was 3 hours to do the grids, the inside lining and this.  The kanji is an iron on.  It's not the same style as the Naruto scrolls ones but I couldn't find a picture of Kishimoto's version till AFTER I did that.  It's good enough.

The roundness begins!

This was the point at which I was finally happy with how it was shaping up. Then 2 seconds after happiness I realized that this thing is HUGE! And now I'm making it BRIGHT red and green O_o 

AGAIN with the tying.  It was HOT while I was doing this too.  28 or so.  All I kept thinking was 'can't drip sweat on the fabric!

I finished the ends of the fabric off in the wrong order and ended up with the lining over the red and green, because I put the lining in second. 

This stupid white line has since been remedied with red and green paint since I was too lazy to pull up the ends and re-glue them.  They never hold the glue as well the second time anyway.

The lining is supposed to look like the stylized writing on Kishimoto's scrolls, cause that's what you'd see if you were inside a scroll!

I really don't like how it came out.  I didn't have enough black fabric paint, even with diluting it a bit for 'flow'.

If this lining ever even STARTS to peel I'm going to rip it out and replace it with one that looks like the frog summoning contract that Naruto signed.

*note* The lining never ever did peel.

I still have to add the cords, I generally use them to keep it shut but it's a pain to keep tying up all the time.  And I need a latch of some sort in the middle to keep it shut.  The cords keep it shut too but I gotta overdo it!

You'll note you can see the shape of the tube underneath the cloth there.  That's the opening and since that cloth couldn't be tied to the pan, it's glued on.  I wish it looked smoother.
You can ignore my toe there. =3