Experiments in bag making, take 3

After my first and second attempts at making bags, this past weekend I made a third bag for use as a purse. This time, I used cotton duck for the outside and regular "apparel" cotton for the inside. The cotton duck is a real winner: it's heavy and slightly stiff, but it holds its shape well and was fairly easy to work with.

This one is big enough for all my stuff, which was the biggest improvement. Like the other experiments, I varied many things at once which is bad for science, but good for teaching me about sewing. One of the things that turned out very well on this purse were the handles. They feel nice in my hand, they're just the right width, and they were brain-dead simple to create and attach.

I attached the handles to the outer purse with a small, square-and-X pattern of stitches. Then, when I sewed on the lining, I sewed through all of it: bag, handle, and lining. This hid the ends of the handles behind the lining and was much easier to sew than the handles on my little jean purse. Plus, it keeps the cleaner lines of the purse without straps going up the side, tote-bag style.

I also made good progress in sizing the bag correctly. Here is the new purse next to the original jean purse for comparison. I think having done the small blue pouch really helped me get a better feel for the dimensions and capacity for a more rectangular purse.

I also had a ton of fun with the leopard print for the lining. I always thought that linings should be solid colors because it's easier to see the purse contents that way. But, I just love the pattern just peeking out, like barely contained frivolity in an otherwise serious looking black purse.

This purse is big enough, but I have found two down-sides that I'll have to correct somehow in future versions. One, the blue flowers really don't match. I have enough leopard print to make a pouch with it and black, so it will match better. Two, the sides and pockets tend to flop open when the purse is sitting down. It's okay for now, since I wanted a purse that was easy to get my wallet into and out of, but I do like having the option of closing it up a little tighter. I will probably experiment with zippers and magnetic closures for that in the future. Also, I like the pockets, but I'll probably employ some velcro in the future to keep them closed more.