A scrappy birthday gift

16 Dec

Last month my eldest had a birthday to celebrate and we’d talked for a while about making a new bag for her.

I’d suggested the Two Zip Hipster bag by Dog Under My Desk as it’s a pattern I’d had in my stash for a while but not got round to making.  Bethan picked a red cotton linen mix and then we realised it was a scrappy piece and we only had enough for a couple of bits so we opted to use a pair of Tobit’s old jeans for the majority of the bag and to make more of a feature of her chosen fabric:

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I think it works brilliantly as a feature fabric; the denim is more hardwearing too so probably a good decision (and a darker colour hides the dirt).

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You can see that I was trying to make the most of the denim so included the seam in the back piece.

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The lining fabric was scraps leftover from backing the Fancy Fox quilt I made earlier this year, I had just enough.

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It took me a while to get my head around all the different pattern pieces to make sure that I was cutting the right piece out of the correct fabric but once that was done the sewing together bit was pretty straightforward.30740907893_1e18f14741_z

I went for a contrasting zip on the front pocket simply because the local shop did not have any thing that remotely matched the red.  That choice led me to top stitching using Aurifil 28 weight in 2810 which adds some nice detail.  The label on the front pocket came from someone somewhere and I thought it would add a bit of a ‘professional’ touch to the bag.

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I have bag hardware in stock so usually make the strap to fit the hardware, this time the pattern called for the same size as what I had which made life easier.  The denim makes for a pretty sturdy strap but I still added some interfacing to give it a bit of strength.

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As zip end tabs often are this one was tricky but it worked ok in the end.  A month after her birthday it’s been used frequently and appears to be a good size with useful pockets.  If I was making another I think that I would add a zip pocket to the inside of the bag rather than a patch one but that’s just personal choice.

This feels like a great upcycling project as well as a scrappy one, I really like the finished bag and am considering making another.  For now though I’m going to link up with Scraptastic Tuesday.

Scraptastic Tuesday
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9 Replies to “A scrappy birthday gift

  1. What a great bag. The denim I think is the perfect bag material. I used it for a bag for a young girl in the summer and it’s sturdy but looks automatically young! I’m sure your daughter will love it.

  2. I started cutting this bag just this morning! I’m using some soft vinyl for the main bag, I’ve never used vinyl before. I hope it comes out well. When I make it for me I will definitely use denim!

  3. Lucky girl it is gorgeous! Looks like you made all the right decisions and I’m looking forward to seeing the next one! Thanks for linking up to #scraptastictuesday

  4. I have been reading a bunch of your posts and realized that I am a stalker if I don’t leave a comment! I love your photos, so clean and close and inviting. Your fabrics are yummy. Such a fun blog. I think I need to go fabric shopping….. Nice blog.

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