Finished Friday

This weeks Finished Friday is going to attempt to be a bit of a 'how to...' post. It is for a union jack bag I decided to make a friend for her birthday that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago on a Work in Progress Wednesday post.

Here is the finished bag:

And now how to make your very own in 14 stages! (I did forget to take pictures for some of the stages as I got carried away with making the bag)

Step 1: Choose your fabrics. I chose to go with a gingham background, cream, and blue and pink in the flower fabric. They were all bits of fabric I had in my stash so raid your stash and see what you can find- you'll be surprised!

Step 2: Mark up and cut out your bag shape from the background fabric. My size is 40cm wide by 50cm tall for front and back pieces.

And NEVER let your cat help you with this stage!!

Step 3: Cut out the strips. I made the cream fabric 2cm wider than the flowery fabric to give it a nice sized boarder. Remember to cut the strips about 4cm wider than you want to finished strip to be and you will press the rough edges under before sewing them on to give a nice neat egde.

Step 4: Press all pieces. I know this is boring and time consuming but it really does make a difference. And remember to press a double hem in your main fabric for the opening of the bag. Then I liked to lay mine out to get an idea of what the finished product would look like.

Step 5: I stitch along the double hem pressed earlier and sewed on all the cream strips to create the background for the flowery strips.



Step 6: I used bondaweb to stick the flowery strips onto the cream ones and then machined over the very edge of these with a zig zag stitch to make sure they were secured.

Step 7 I decided to embroider a blanket stitch along the outside of the cream strips just to make them stand out a bit more. I chose a dark purple embroidery thread for mine.

Here is where I stopped taking pictures!

Step 8: Make the bag. Put right sides together and sew around 3 edges (leaving your double hemed side open) and turn right sides out.

Step 9: Make the lining. For this I measured the finished size of the bag and cut out 2 pieces of fabric that size. I pressed a hem again for the opening of the bag. Then sew along 3 sides again.

Step 10: Make 2 handles. Cut a piece of fabric 3 times as wide as you would like them to end up and however long you would like them adding about 5cm for sewing in place. Press the long raw edges to the middle and then press the strip in half again. Sew a line of straight stitching along the folds and you have a bag handle.

Step 11: Place the lining inside the bag so you can see the right side of the fabric.

Step 12: Pin the handles into place between the bag and the lining so the short raw edges cannot be seen. I like to make sure the bag hangs straight and that the handles are both in the same position.

Step 13: Pin the lining to the inside of the bag making sure the top edges meet but the lining doesn't come over the top.

Step 14: Machine a line of straight stitches along the top of the bag as close as you dare the the edge. The will sew the lining to the bag and the handles in place and then you have one completed union jack bag.

But there is one more surprise...the bag can be reversed!!!

This was not the intention when I was making the bag but I like it!

If you have problems following the step by step guide just let me know and I will try to make it clearer.


Xxx