Sew Paint It: Make a Messenger Bag

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Make a Messenger Bag

I made a new bag for myself. I saw this one on the blog Plum and June and just loved it. So here is mine.

I used a medium weight denim for my bag. This will be nice and durable. The embellishment is pam kitty love, sarah jane children at play (as I have a lot of scraps of this to hand) and some hello kitty. I mostly stuck to the Plum and June instructions except that for the strap and finishing of the top of the bag.

I started by doing a simple sort of log cabin type arrangement in pink and blue using a piece of flannel as a base. I finished it all around in the denim. Then I used another piece of denim for the other side of the flap (Plum and June use fabric) and a did a few lines of stitching around the edge of it and the edge of the patches.

Yes, I know, it isn't quite level at the bottom. I love that bit.

I took lining, batting and outer fabric which were all about 25" by 11". I quilted the lining to the batting and sewed the side and bottom together and then I made corners (how to do that is here by sew mama sew).

Then I took the outer fabric and sewed that the same way and put one inside the other. I found the outer fabric wasn't long enough for some perplexing reason. I didn't feel like making the bag shorter so I decided to have a pieced border around the top that you would hardly see anyway due to the flap and strap. So I got out my scraps from making 16 patch blocks. I knew they would come in handy one day!

So I sewed them into a strip, doubled them over and sewed them around the edge like binding. I over sewed it to make it really secure as this also held the flap into place. Then I secured it to the inside as well.

Don't look too closely, it is not the best binding job you have ever seen in your life. My excuse (if I needed one) is that I was making it up as I went along.
I then made the handle. The one in Plum and June was pieced the whole length but I felt mine would be too garish and pink if I did that so I had only two areas where I pieced it. I made the handle out of lengths of denim and batting in the middle and quilted it in lines several times along the length. Then I sewed it onto the sides. I used a bright blue thread for all of the stitching that can be seen.

Over the last few weeks I have read so many write ups about the quilt show in Oregon. I have loved reading about it. Well this week Sydney has the Craft and Quilt Show here at Darling Harbour so I am going to go. I am going to go on Friday. I am going to be using this very bag while I am there. If you see me with it, then please feel free to shout out 'Hey! Bag lady!!'. I will be so happy if you do!