L2L: Sew Much to Do: Week 12

The fabric for this week's project was actually suppose to be a dress for another project. But seeing that fall is upon us and CJ really needed a bag for her Cubbie handbook, I decided to re-purpose that fabric for a cute bag that has been due her for over a year now!!!!!!! This bag is so easy to modify that you could use it for any book, especially one that you are giving away as a gift this Christmas!!!!!! So lets get started:

1. Take two pieces of fabric and put them right sides together.

Here is the dress ALMOST finished, I'm going to cut between the green stripes.

2. Cut out your fabric and ensure you have enough for the seam allowance. I wanted more on the top because I am going to fold down the top for an easy finish.

3. We are almost done!!! Fold down the top of both fabric pieces and then pin the sides and bottom together, fabric should still be right sides together. Now sew these three sides together leaving the top open and pin your handles to the top.

The pink ribbon is laid out to give you an idea of how long the handles can be.

Here the sides and bottom seams have been sewn.

4. When you sew the handles on you should sew on the inside of the bag so that you can open up the side seams for a nicer finish.

5. Now turn your bag right side out and if you want to stop at this point, I would go ahead and sew another line above the line you did to attach the handles and you are done.

6. I wanted to embellish the bag with a ruffle so I used some more fabric from the original dress to make my ruffle.

I only used one of these strips for my ruffle.

7. I tried a couple of methods but this worked best. I folded the fabric in what you could call thirds. So if you folded your fabric there would be one solid side and the top and bottom of the fabric would be on the opposite side. You would do this wrong sides together so the right side of the fabric is on the outside. (I hope this makes sense.)

8. Next I used this awesome gathering technique to make a ruffle........

9. Attached the ruffle to my bag by first tucking under my edge....

10.Then pinning the ruffle around the right side of my bag folding under the end just like I did at the beginning. I used a small straight stitch and stitched right down the center of the ruffle.