I cut this bag out over a year ago planning to make it before I got side
tracked by whatever I decided to do instead. I was getting a bit tired
of my current handbag so decided to get this out and finish it. Since
I'd done most of the fabric cutting already making this bag only took a
couple of hours.
I used one of my favourite fabrics for the outer
cover and chose to use a matching green check for the centre panel. I
used 2 shades of red for the inner bag - a lovely bright red for the
lining and a paler red for the pockets.
It's a pattern by
Lazy Girl Designs called "Gracie handbag"
which I adapted a bit to suit my personal likes and needs. First and
most obvious is that I didn't add the handles but made a single long
shoulder strap instead as I prefer to wear my bags across one shoulder
and down the other side. The other thing I did was add two little loops
on the inside side seam (one on each side) with a D-ring in them to hang
things on. When I'd finished the bag it looked a bit "unfinished" so I
used a bit of leftover shoulder strap on the closure flap to liven it up
a little.
When I made my new handbag I realised that my old blue and yellow rail card holders wouldn't suit it .
So I decided to make myself a new one, however having the closure to
the holder at the bottom was something I didn't want this time so I
decided to workout how to add it to the top instead - using the old
trial and error method I tried a few things trying to avoid
the pattern I'd used before
as I wanted to make a tutorial for it if it worked. However this didn't
really work so I decided to adjust the pattern instead.
Since I
wanted it to be red on the inside I cut the front piece from 2 fabrics
and added a bit extra for the seam allowance I needed. I measured on the
old card holder where the flap ended and added the seam allowance
before cutting a bit for that + another piece the same size as the front
cover to complete the outer back section. I first sewed a bit of green
into the front flap to give it the stripe you see and sewed the flap,
smaller back cover piece and a loop made from green together before
pretending the back was made out of one piece and continuing from there.
You will notice that I forgot to trim the corners of the flap but in
the end I decided it looked ok and I wasn't going to rip this apart a
3rd time lol.
This can be attached to the D-ring in my handbag
Then
I decided I wanted a nice cover for my passport and after some fiddling
worked out how to get all the seams on the inside. I added some Velcro
to the front and a closure strap (using another bit of the shoulder
strap from the bag + some green to make the stripe) to keep it closed in
my bag.
Since I'm going to be going abroad later this year I decided to also
make a little purse (wallet for all you lovely American's out there
) to put the other currency in while I'm using the currency of the
country I'm in since I've found that it's a pain to have 2 currencies in
the same purse at the same time.
I made this from 4 pieces of fabric using
this pattern as the inspiration and then adding my own twist to it, and made my life difficult in the process.
First
of all I sewed the two smaller pieces together along the bottom seam
then I measured where that seam touched the inner lining and sewed along
the seam line again to fix it in place effectively hiding the seams and
invisibly fixing the inner coin section to the lining. I then folded
the purse to be into the end shape and found the velcro closure
placement and sewed them in place.
Once that was done I started
fiddling and folding the bits of fabric, pinning it in place and turning
it right sides out till I'd worked out how to sew it all together with a
single additional seam, did a few origami like twists while turning
things right sides out through what would become a zipper seam and spent
a while cursing while inserting the zip as it could have done with a
tinsy bit more space for ease of sewing. I hand sewed the front cover to
the zip to hide the seams (and because I couldn't sew the last bit by
machine without sewing the coin purse shut hehe)
