Bag Lady (FO)

Christmas was a bit of a crafting disaster this year.  I don't think any of the craft projects I planned actually came to anything, so the only things that got made were fudge and peppermint bark (which were both excellent by the way).

No-one noticed about the crafty stuff. 

Sniff.

Even if I didn't finish anything in time for Christmas, I did start a few things, and one afternoon -  before the big day - I cut out a wee pile of these fat-quarter shopping bags. I was given some fat quarters by my MIL a year or two back, and this seemed like a perfect project for those particular bits of fabric. 

Last week I summoned up the effort to get the sewing machine out and start stitching. For something so simple, there seemed to be a lot of sewing to do, and it took me two whole evenings to progress from a pile of fabric shapes to three finished bags!

Let's just go through the details then. These bags have a handle facing, which is finished at the raw edge (2 seams), attached to the bag fabric (6 seams), then joined at the handles (2 seams), and top stitched (3 seams). After that the sides and bottom of the bag are finished with French seams (6 seams) and the corners bagged out, again with French seams (4 seams). 

Add to that pressing, turning inside/outside and pinning (where required). All together it's a lot of small seams to stitch and restitch, and takes a bit of time. A 20 minute tote this ain't. 

Sigh.

I  cut out 4 bags, but because I am very stupid a design visionary, on the first one I omitted to place the fold of the pattern piece on the fold of the fabric and ended up with some different shaped pieces. I decided to leave my hacked version to last, and made up the other three as per the instructions. 

I say that as if I followed the instructions to the letter, but I didn't. We'll just gloss over the other mistake I made with the French seams shall we, oh, and the fact that I completely forgot about the elastic loops too? Ye-es. 

So, here they are: three pretty cute bags. 

The flowery ones have been sent off to live with my parents. The green one is for my brother, and should soon be joined by the design hacked alter-ego version (when I get off my a*se to sew it up, ahem). 

So, my overall verdict: a nice project to do if you don't mind spending a bit of time sewing seams, and you have some fat quarters to 'use' up. Things might go a bit quicker with the overlocker perhaps, so I might try that for bag four.  (I did pink all my raw edges, just because). 

I like the integral handles and the handle facing - because, well I might be over those webbing or self-fabric handles that most shopping bags have and which inevitably break/wear through. 

I guess the bottom will fall out of these first...