Let me start this by saying: I'm not a very experienced sewer, so if I can do it SEW CAN YOU! (See what I did there??)
PSA: There are a lot of pictures here. A lot. Sowwy.
Being the extremely frugal person I am, (and was raised to be, Shoutout: Mom and Dad!) I am always looking for a less expensive way to get what I want. Maybe that's what makes DIY projects appeal to me. Or, maybe I'm too high maintenance to just buy something as is, even if it's not *perfect*. Probably both.
I looked for tutorials online and none of them were exactly what I wanted to do. Until I ended up finding one tutorial for a bag I liked, and it was LITERALLY just pictures. Now don't get me wrong. Pictures are great. 1000 words and all that crap, but ya girl needs more help than that. I attempted it on my own once and I got this. Can you see how small it is??? It's barely big enough for my (very small) collection of jewelry.
This sad, sad small tiny doll person bag. The whole point was to make something my Naked 2 eyeshadow would fit in. Not going to cut it. This is where WORDS and MEASUREMENTS would have helped me. Although I guess if I successfully made a bag, the tutorial couldn't have been completely bad. I'm probably just being a diva about it, to be honest, but here are pictures AND instructions for anyone else who wants to attempt this.
Materials:
Fabric for Outside: 1/2 yard
Fabric for Inside: 1/2 yard
Interfacing: 1/2 yard (preferable iron on. Make it easier on yourself!)
Zipper: 16 inch (you may be able to get away with a 14 but I need more room for error, oops)
Thread: Obviously.
First, cut all of your material into rectangles, 8 x 14 inches. The pretty outer fabric, the inner fabric (which is also pretty, I'm sure. Equality, people!) and the interfacing. Pat yourself on the back because cutting fabric is awful, hellish torture.
We moved over two weeks ago, and yet I still haven't found my ruler or yardstick. So I made it work with some extra wood and a tape measure! :)
Next, iron your interfacing onto the BACK of the INSIDE fabric. Trust me on this. If you iron it onto the outer fabric, it looks awful. (See above: mini makeup bag disaster) If you can't tell, the outside looks wrinkled and the inside looks beautiful. Obviously we want the outside to look the best so iron onto the inside.
Now. Take the outer piece. Lay it face up on the table. Put the zipper face down, on top of it. line up the TOP edge of the zipper, with the top edge of the outer fabric. Put the inner fabric face down on top of that, lining it up as well, so your ironed on interfacing is looking up at you, begging you to sew it into something pretty.
Pink: Outside facing up
White: Interfacing facing up
Laptop: Netflix, Parks and Recreation. Wussup.
Sew along the top edge of the zipper. Make sure not to get your seam all up on the zipper or else it won't open and close well and you'll hate yourself for not making sure it zipped right before you sewed the whole thing.
Can we also pretend I painted my nails for these pictures? Thanks.
Now do the same thing with the other side. If you're nervous just look at it and make sure that when it's unfolded, your insides will face one another and your outsides will not. Also take note that since you flipped it over, your zipper is now face up.
Now put the outer sides together. They're faces should touch. Outer fabrics sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. You will see the fabric side of the two inner sides sew along the bottom. By that I mean, parallel to the zipper, but on the opposite end of the bag.
Take the zipper and the seam you just sewed and put them together. Theres really no way to explain it, so heres a picture. The bottom seam is directly underneath the zipper.
In the photo above, you can see that I'm about to sew down the right side of the bag. Do it. Flip that bad boy over and sew down the left side too. YOU ARE ALMOST DONE. YOU CAN DO IT.
This sounds complicated but you can totally handle it. I mean come on, you've made 4/5 of a bag by now! What can't you do??? Take the left side and smooth is towards the bottom. You're making a point here.
Next, measure 2.5 inches down on each side. Draw a line between those points and sew across it. Then cut off the point. I only took one picture of that process, for efficiency. (Meaning: I forgot to take other pictures.)
It should looks like this once you do all four ends. Now turn it right side out and enjoy. You can iron some seams if you want but don't get too crazy or it will look like a kleenex box. (Thanks for the feedback, Kate!)
I'm going to use the first one I made to show you the finished product because it has the pretty monogram (made with a Silhouette machine, will post about it in the future), and this one doesn't. Maybe I shouldn't live 3 hours away from the person with the Silhouette machine. (Hi, Mom!)
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