Thursday 2 June 2011

A shopping bag with a retro touch - Part 1

My mam asked me to make "a red bag" for her.
I thought of making one of the bags out of the Japanese book, of which I told you in my previous post.
I took the pattern of this bag as a base:
This is a very simple, basic bag, with a  base and 2 side panels.
Although I can't read japanese, I didn't need the instructions. Also the pictures are clear.
I increased the size of the pattern with 1 cm, all around the outside of the pattern pieces and increased the height of the bag with 3 cm.
Apart from that, I added a strap with key hook , a hidden pocket closed by a zipper and I used leather bag handles.
First , I made the pocket. I used the instructions out of Lisa Lam's "Bag making bible".
If you don't have the book , there is a good tutorial on her blog: the zippered inner bag tutorial.
Here are some pictures. It is really easy to make this pocket.
 This is the back of the pocket fabric
I always use my embroidery scissors to do the fine cutting work.
 This is the front of the lining fabric, the pocket fabric has been pulled through.
 The stitched zipper from the back.
Once the second pocket piece was added, you get this view.
Now, one of the lining pieces has a zippered pocket.
Then I stitched both side lining pieces together, Wrong side out (WSO).
Once this was done, I attached the base of the bag, with the right sides facing each other
For the strap , I took a piece of interfaced fabric; 4 cm wide and a few cm longer than the height of the bag.
I folded the strap in half along the length, opened it , folded the long edges to the crease and folded again along the center crease. The strap will be 1 cm wide. I closed one of the short ends by folding the fabric inside. I threaded the D-ring of the key hook onto the strap and topstitched along both sides of the strap.
This is the result:

The lining bag is ready.
Now, it is time for the outer bag.
More about that in my next post.
Kristien

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