(Easy access to the project here: Sophia Carry All)

Following on from Lisa’s post about designing bags, I thought I’d follow my own particular process of making a bag from a commercial pattern, just to see what I learn.

The very first bag I tried to make was a self-drafted pattern, for a messenger bag that could hold A4 (this is something of a theme with me) and although it was good it wasn’t great. I’ve self drafted other bags since, and recently I’ve decided that I’d like to try to make another messenger, but with the benefit of actually having some bag-making experience. This Sophia bag is something I want to make for myself (for a change :) so here we go.

First things first: trace out the pattern pieces and cut them out. I think it’s good practice not to cut your original pattern: should your scissors or cutter ever slip or slide while you’re cutting then you won’t ruin the original pattern piece. Tracing tissue is cheap – patterns are not.

And here they are, all seven of them:

You’ll notice that most of them are simply rectangles or squares. This is why I love La Butler – she makes the construction and cutting out as simple as possible. Remember to mark onto your pieces which ones they are!

Next the trusty notebook: I make my own notes for all the bags I make, including my own designs, in this here notebook. That way any problems I come across won’t be problems the next time. As long as I remember to read the book. This is where I make a list of what I need to cut out of each material. I’m just doing the exterior fabric tonight so let’s begin with the main panel.

My problem is that the fabric is a lovely velvet from Moda. When it’s wrong side up you can’t see through it, but I want to centre my main panel on one of the floral patterns. Solution: take a long ruler or yardstick and line up one edge along the vertical line you want for the centre of the main panel.

Fold the fabric over the ruler and pin in place. Slide the ruler out carefully and pin on the pattern piece. Cut out and –

Ta da! Now repeat for the second panel.

What you might or might not have realised is that I am completely ignoring the suggested layout given in the pattern. There are two reasons. Firstly – thrift: when I made the Madison Bag I found I had a lot of fabric left over, but because I’d followed the layout a good swathe of it wasn’t large enough to do anything else with. Secondly – the self-bias: the pattern calls for making self-fabric bias strips to encase the cording. I am not convinced that this is the right solution with this fabric, so if I do decide not to use the remainder for the strips I’ll have enough left over in a large enough piece to do something with.

This is why, after checking the fabric over, I found that I had two nice pieces for the end panels from the fabric in between the gaps left by the main panels, which wouldn’t have found a use otherwise.

And so to the rest of the pieces, which are all cut on the fold. The pieces that will make the biggest inroad into your fabric are the handles. I turned the fabric around so that I was still using the same side I’d been cutting from. Cutting close to this top edge means that I keep more fabric ‘whole’. I work down the folded edge of the fabric withe each piece, using the bottom edge of one as the top edge of the next. This saves time (excellent, because I’m lazy) and also fabric (ditto, but because I’m thrifty).

And this is what I’m left with: lots of spare fabric. I think that if you are not going to need to make the bias you can definitely get away with a single yard. Sometimes bag making for me is making the most of what I’ve got, and then saving some for later.

So that’s the exterior fabric – now there’s just a mountain of interfacing, fleece and lining to do…

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