bags: box and pyramid

While looking for whirly-giggle quilt patterns on-line, I stumbled across this blog with bag patterns. I love sewing bags. The whole process is fun with the added pleasure that I'm not trying to fit the final product to an actual real person whose shape is nothing similar to what pattern companies design for.

I fell in love with the pyramid bag at first sight. But they mentioned the pattern had been taken down from the web. A few google searches and help from the 'way back machine' and I had a pattern.

I gathered what fabric I had on hand, what zippers I could find (uh, sure - green goes with anything!) and started cutting out patterns. I started with the box bag. The pattern gave instructions to line it so that no raw edges would been seen. It's always a bit of a trick to do that, but it didn't sound too bad. I didn't follow all of the directions (it's a curse - I always think I know better than the instructions), so I had to undo a couple of seams a little bit to maneuver everything into place - but nothing big.



Looks great - doesn't it. The pattern size called for 16"x12". I think if I was to make it again, I'd do it a bit bigger. It's a cute bag - but a little on the small side. Only my small knitting (socks or leper bandages) would fit in it.

On to the pyramid bag. I was glad I did the box bag first because it helped explain how to sew the lining and exterior fabric separate while they were both sewn into the zipper so that all of the raw edges would be hidden. I made it 12"x24" - instead of the 7.5"x15" mentioned in the pattern. It went together really fast ... but was way to big to hold it's shape. I ripped the entire thing apart and re-cut to 10"x20". (Sometimes the experiment fails. At least I learned that unless you break out the heavy duty craft interfacing, don't go any bigger than 10" x 20".)



It was a great "evening" project, I've got two bags to hold small projects, I love the green zippers (Mom - where ever did you find that color of lime green?), and I found a new blog to watch for more bag patterns. In all, it was a successful Friday night of sewing.