Shopping Bag Sewing Tutorial
I'm a bit of a reusable bag hoarder. I have far more bags than I could ever fill in any single shopping trip. But I love collecting them and adding them to my 'container' obsession collection. Yes.. I have a problem.. I am addicted to containers. Boxes, baskets and bags galore. Now, don't take this as some indication that I'm an organized person.. because I'm not.. but I love containers.
Along with being only semi organized on a good day (and we just started potty training Master Luke. *pulls hair*) I sometimes decide I need extra stuff on my plate. So, I recently participated in a 'Shopping Bag' swap with some other members of a sewing group on Facebook. And it had a deadline. Yikes!
Anyway, the type of bag was left up to the interpretation of the sewer and I decided to go with a pattern I made modeled after a plastic grocery store bag. I created this pattern a couple years ago and made a bunch of bags I gave around to the ladies in my RE office at Christmas.
It was a fun swap and the bag I got was big and amazing and fun. I was using it right away.
So here it is, in the wee hours of the morn, whilst children sleep and husbands snore,
The Tutorial.
I took apart a plastic grocery bag and ended up with the pictured half bag pattern. The dotted line is a pleat that folded into the bag. For this bag I used about a 1/2 yard of corduroy floral I had in my stash, along with some teal colored lace. You can use pretty much any fabric and any embellishments you would like. I found this fabric was probably heavier than I would use in the future or that I have used in the past.. but it worked out fine for this project. I bought the double fold bias binding and thread at the local craft joint.
I folded my fabric and cut 2 pieces, placing the pattern on the fold.
I wanted a pocket so I started with that. I cut a rough 'bowl' shaped piece to a size appropriate for the front of the bag. This was about 10"x10".
I folded and ironed the top edge down about 1/4".
Flipped it over, folded the top down about 1" and ironed again.
I then sewed a 1/4" seam from the fold to the crease of the original 1/4" fold on both sides of the top of the pocket.
I then trimmed just the top seam allowance and snipped the corner as shown.
I then flipped the 1" piece back over, tucking in the corners and pushing them out with a blunt, pointed object (I use a small dowel) and sewing it down along the edge across the top.
I then ironed the edges up a 1/4" all around.
I added a piece of the teal lace here, sewing it down across the top of the pocket. Then I pinned the (camouflaged!) pocket to the front of one of my bag pieces in about the center and sewed it on close to the edges leaving the top open.
I then added a length of the lace to the 'back' piece of my bag, placing it at about the height as the pocket lace.
I then put the 2 pieces WRONG sides together. I'm doing a French seam here. It will enclose your seam and make the inside of your bag finished.
Sew the straight sides and bottom and the top part of the handles together with a 1/4" seam. Do not stitch the rounded part or the square, center handles closed.
Turn the bag inside out and stitch the same using a 5/8" seam, enclosing the other seam within the seam line.
Then I folded the sides over at the place the dotted line fell on the pattern piece. I folded one to the front and one to the back. I sewed them in place along the bottom seam line only.
This is what that pleat looks like from the outside.
I then pinned the bias binding around the handle holes. On this type of double fold, bias binding, one side is a smidgen narrower than the other. It's made that way so you can sew on the narrower side and be almost certain to catch the binding on the other side.
My point is.. Put the narrower side facing up on the side you intend to sew on.
I actually turned my bag inside out and sewed from this angle. It was much easier to sew around that smallish hole. I put the narrower side of the binding on the patterned side.
I then finished off the big opening the same way. I did learn that I have a lot to learn about attaching bias binding.. but it turned out ok.
I then folded over the handle from the outside at the point the dotted line was on my pattern, which happens to be the same depth as the pleat you already created, and sewed a straight line across the top to attach it.
And here it is! Finished shopping bag. Oh.. I did add a little tab and snap to the pocket as an afterthought.. but I didn't catch any photos of it.. sorry!
The End
