Making Bags - Part I

Bags Bags everywhere, I joined the EB Bag Swap this past month and oh what a great journey it has been in making bags. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought myself capable of creating a bag to wear, a fashion statement, a joy coming hot off your own sewing machine.

I myself immediately fell in love with the Buttercup_Bag made by rae, what a delightful pattern and so easy to create using 2 fat quarters, a pocket on the inner and joined with a magnetic clasp, which I learnt to do via Little Birdie Secrets Tutorial

I enlarged the buttercup pattern by 30% as my recipient wanted a medium to large bag, but in the end I used another pattern. There were just too many patterns out there, I found myself turning in circles.

Some of the buttercup bag trials

Here I was playing around with adding a material flower to the bag

The bag on its own

Me modelling the bag (lol))

The buttercup bag using Marcus Brothers Sturbridge Village Collection II

The camera doesn't do justice to the fabric colours

The buttercup bag using Urban Couture 30152 Fabric by Basic Grey (Exterior)
and New Basics 2000 by P&B Textiles (Interior)

The material (above) was also the buttercup exterior
and material (below) buttercup interior. Matching Set I created.

I also tried an oversized reversible tote, ignore the handles in these pictures, I realised that I had put them on wrong, so undid all the stitching and put them on properly (ie one handle on both each side of the material, not crossing over as above.) This bag was extra large (I decided in the end too large for my recipient), but gosh it came together nicely and had 5" gusset corners (another new skill I had to learn with a little help from my mum *blushes*) to give it a really niced square edge corner like a shopping bag :) I tried it on all our prams (stroller, valco, babylove duolite) and it hung nicely over the handles, would be great for shopping or an outing with your little one, room enough for everything!!!

Caleb showing the bag could be worn messenger style

What I sent to my recipient in the end, the shoulder bag (dual pocket inside) had a longer handle as she wanted to be able to put it over her pram, I should added more interfacing to the bag/handle to give it more Oomph (it was kind of floppy IYNWIM), sent along a matching buttercup bag too, because who could resist matching fabric with a bag set!

Making bags ~ Its' been a great learning curve, I've had to learn about pulling the inner liner out and pushing it back through to create an exterior and interior, changing the handle from being stitched on the outside to more in between the seams (how I preferred it), top stitching, adding a pocket, and magnetic clasp.

Things I would do differently is definitely the iron on inter-facing on both interior and exterior and handle!! The original pattern didn't call for it, but today in my own sewing, I used the buttercup enlarged by another 30 % and ironed a medium interfacing (before I found the interfacing either too stiff (especially for pleats, just wouldn't happen) or too floppy) but medium seems to be just right (I find this out now after I've sent it ..) The interfacing to the exterior/interior/handle of the bag, definitely gave it more body and a quilting like feel to it.

I really wished that I had been able to grasp this concept more before sending it to my recipient ROMI who was very generous in her comment re my bag *blushes* I also wished I'd been able to get a photo of today's buttercup bag to show and compare to the previous ones, but my work was hot off the sewing machine and rushed over to catch my brother who had just arrived to pick up my nieces and was essentially just putting them in the car to go straight back to Melbourne. I made the bag for my sister-in-law. I might email her to see if she'll send me a pick of her and the bag to post here! LOL

Thanks for sharing my bag journey, today I also got some great Dick and Jane material as I have a friends' birthday coming up (and she's really into retro vintage) Vik's really inspired me with her bag using this fabric ... I'm also off to find some sweet Amy Butler fabric for another friend (interestingly enough my two close friends share the same birthday (lol))