Sew Many Bags

I mentioned that I had been laid up with an injured foot and had been doing quite a bit of sewing as well as knitting. Today I am going to show you all the bags as well as one I had made a little while ago but forgot to show.

On Ravelry there is a thread titled show me your homemade project bags, please! which was started way back in 2014 and now has over 6500 posts, although many of those are love that and variations. I am slowly working my way through this thread and making note of/bookmarking any patterns that I think I would like to make.

Which brought me to this tutorial. One of the things I liked about it was I could use many leftovers. I liked the end result so much that I am going to keep it for myself. I also liked the style so much that I made two more that will be gifts. All three bags were made with leftover fabric; the only purchase was the cord for the drawstring as I did not want to use fabric.



This is the first one. I used ribbon yarn for the drawstrings to see how that would work but did not like it. The black fabric was left over from the binding for this quilt; the rim was in the pack of strips I used to make this quilt; the handles were from this quilt and the cover was left over from the backing from this quilt. The lining, which you cannot see, was fabric I had originally purchased as the backing for that quilt.

Having made one, I had to make another.



The black fabric and the yellow fabric are the same as for my bag; one of the orange for the handles was left over from my Jelly Roll Quilt and the other orange was from the same quilt as the handles for my bag; the cover and lining which you cannot see were from a fat quarter which I had in my stash for some other bag which didn't get made!

And having made two, I had to make another. This one out of canvas fabric I had left over.



The main blue flowery fabric and the lining, which you cannot see, are left overs from this bag; the rim, handles and cover are remnants from this bag.

The changes I made to this tutorial: add interfacing before sewing bottom seams; add interfacing to both sides of the rim (I did this by mistake to the first one); do not stitch any of the top edges/rim edge before joining rim, outer, lining. Also, as suggested, I cut the cover fabric wider to make enclosed seams and top stitched to enclose all raw edges.

Having made three of these bags, and I'm sure there will be more, I went on to another design. A bag made with a metal ruler at the top to make a snap bag. I had made one a while ago to make a glasses bag for my husband. I remember it being really fiddly and I searched for different tutorials but ended up with the one I had originally adapted as it had no enclosed seams. This time I decided to follow the instructions as written. i.e. use the same size fabric pieces.

First, of course, was to make one for myself. The one on the left in this photo. (The photo I took of it on its own is blurry, I could take another one but by the time I take one I am relatively happy with and upload it, months will have passed.)



As you can see the outer colours match my bag. The one on the right was made from bag scraps. I made another two out of bag scraps. These bags are quick to make until it comes to sewing down the casing for the ruler. On the last one I made I sewed the casing by hand and added the ruler after I had sewed about two-thirds around.

And there's still more. I have already mentioned my Jelly Roll Race quilt. I have some of the diagonal parts left over and I decided one was big enough for one side of a bag.



As this side was patchwork I decided to make the other side patchwork with left over fabric.



I sewed scraps together and then cut out the same size as the piece I already had. I did not want to lose the patchwork effect on the bottom of the bag so I added the plain beige from a fat quarter purchased and never used for its original intent. (See above.) I also decided to add a small piece at the top. I also added the strip on the lining so that the zipper is joined to the same fabric inside and out. I am pleased that as well as a handle, I sewed a little tab at the other end. I also like the fabric pieces I sewed at each end of the zipper but wish I had remembered to top stitch after sewing the side seams. This is a nice size bag maybe I should use it for the mystery shawl.

And I am going to take a break there as this post is already long. Next time I will post photos of two other bags I made. As well as the one I forgot to post,