I sewed this Redwood Tote during second lockdown last year.  It was sewn in fits and starts over a period of about four weeks as I waited for zips and hardware to arrive in the mail.

I do enjoy bag making! I hadn’t used Noodlehead patterns before, but I will again after sewing this one. Instructions were clear, everything fitted together perfectly, and I was really pleased with the finished bag.

The outer fabric and the lining are both Ikea drills that have been in stash for an extremely long time. Yes, there was some fussy cutting involved with the placement of the bird prints!

One of the fun things about bag making is working out what fabrics, straps and hardware combinations to use.

The leather that I used on the base and for the straps was harvested from a pair of too-small leather pants that a friend gave me a while ago. It’s very soft, which made it easy to sew but possibly a bit too supple for the straps.

I used rivets to secure the straps to the bag, and metal YKK zips for the outer pocket and the bag closure. As always, my tip to Australians with bag hardware is to buy QUALITY. Not the stuff you can get at Spotlight/Lincraft. I usually have to order online from saddlery or leather suppliers or specialist bag hardware shops. Bags like this take a bit of time to make, because there are lots of components, and they take more fabric than you would first think. Don’t spoil your lovely bag with cheap hardware!

There are slip pockets inside the bag, a zippered pocket on the outside, and another slip pocket on the outside.  Plenty of places to stash things away!   The zippered bag closure keeps the contents secure.

I’ll definitely give this pattern another whirl.  I really enjoy sewing bags, and this one has proved itself to be a very useable bag for my lifestyle.

There is a myriad of free and paid options available for zippered pouches.  They all have their pros and cons in terms of construction and finish.  One of my absolute favourites though is the (paid) You Sew, Girl Make-Up Purse pattern.

I have been sewing this pattern for years and years now, in the smaller size (the pattern now includes four sizes). It’s a lined pouch, so is beautifully finished with no raw edges or exposed seam allowances anywhere.

The joy of Nicole’s patterns (she does excellent bag patterns too, also available from her Etsy store) is that they are a sewing lesson in each pattern. There are loads of tips for an excellent result that you can also apply to your other sewing.

These little pouches were sewn as gifts last year. Both use small pieces of precious fabrics. I have a couple of pouches in this size myself, and it’s surprising how much fits into them. Highly recommended.

What are your favourite zippered pouch patterns?

Over the weekend I pulled out a couple of long dormant projects.  A crochet blanket, all 24 squares made but needing to be edged then joined together.  The squares are all different, so have different stitch counts in their outside row.  This is where the project had halted – I needed to count how many stitches there were, record it for each square then figure out what increases/decreases I would need to do in my edging round in order to have them pretty much the same for joining.  I’ve now done all the counting and calculations and have started on the outside rounds.  My family use my crochet blankets as couch blankets, so it will be good to finally get this done!  The squares were all crocheted during 2012.  I found an even older project – a quilt top that was a Block A Month project started in 2009.  The nine main blocks were done at the time.  Today I’m going to sew up the setting squares and finish off the top.  Then I’ll add it to my to-be-quilted box, which contains quilt tops, wadding and backs.  Maybe some of those will finally get finished this year too!

A couple of weeks ago I sewed up this little Apertio pouch. It’s a free pattern by Blogless Anna, and was a highly satisfying project. Anna excels in writing extremely clear and detailed instructions; her perfectionism gives beautiful results.

This little pouch is fully lined. I didn’t have a zip of the correct length in stash (however Anna does sell them) so used one that was longer and was extremely careful when I inserted it. The corners are boxed, which gives shape and structure. I added a little label from Kylie and the Machine into the side seam.

That lovely textured outer fabric came to me via Restash last year (I now know it originally belonged to Jenny – thank you). This little pouch really does feel like it’s a combined effort by sewing friends – Anna,  Kylie, Jenny and me!  Give this pattern a whirl if you’re looking for something to sew while you’re staying at home.

How DO people get decent photos of bags and totes?  I find it so difficult!

I’ve sewn the Blogless Anna Genoa Tote quite a few times, but this is the first time that I’ve sewn it in leather. It was prompted by a visit to Leffler Leather in February last year with a group of other sewers.

So much fabulous leather in so many colours, textures and patterns! I chose this metallic brown (rather than purple alligator or similar) and also bought some pre-cut handles of thicker leather.

You can see that I over did things when I hammered the rivets into place, leaving circular marks on the handle leather around them from the anvil edges. Bugger. I was so concerned with ensuring that they were as secure as possible that I didn’t even realise that was happening.

I used a printed barkcloth that I picked up at last year’s Restash for the lining, with a pocket from Japanese linen that I have had in my collection for a little while. This is the smallest of the tote sizes. Sewing the leather was a little challenging; it was thicker than preferred for this project – I’d use thinner and softer leather next time.  However, overall I am pleased with the finished product.

I’ve sewn many, many bags over the years, but this is the first time that I’ve sewn one in leather.  I don’t think that it will be the last time.

The pattern is the Style Arc London tote bag. From their website: Gorgeous tote bag with clever but simple design that creates a flat base. The buckle closure makes this bag secure and the inside pocket includes a phone compartment. This bag is fully lined. FABRIC SUGGESTION & DESCRIPTION Leather, canvas, denim.

The leather I used was from NSW Leather Co in Collingwood.  It was rather thin and very soft, so it was actually very easy to sew.  The brown has a metallic sheen; the contrasting mustard leather is matt.  I can’t remember what type of skins they were unfortunately, but they were lovely to work with.  I took the pattern pieces in and selected the skins that would fit – the staff there were very helpful and provided me with plenty of advice, even though it’s really more a wholesale place (but happy to assist with retail, even small purchases like mine).

Bags are really difficult to photograph effectively! The lining fabric is quilting cotton, from a now discontinued Anna Maria Horner range. I included a key leash, and an internal pocket on each side of the bag.

I decided to use contrasting stitching throughout, which was a bit of a gamble as it required very slow and patient stitching! I had done a bit of testing before I decided what needles, machine feet and threads to use. On my machine, with this fairly thin leather, a fresh sharp needle, regular Gutterman thread and the normal presser foot worked the best! Who’d have thought! My machine doesn’t have very strong presser foot pressure, which probably helps – others may have more luck using a walking foot, or a teflon foot, or leather needles. My advice is to sew a few samples and see what works best in your situation. I used quilting clips to hold the pieces together – well worth it, as you can’t pin leather without leaving holes!

I carry a fair bit of stuff in my bags, so decided to add some rivets to the handles for extra security. I also folded the handles in half around cording and sewed them together to provide extra strength and support. As it turns out the cording tends to move out of the straps when I’m using the bag, so I probably need to glue the ends of it in place. Some of the handle stitching has come undone where it attaches to the bag, so this also needs reinforcement. Handles do a lot of work!

I have to give lots of my bag making credit to Nicole Mallalieu – I learned all my bag making skills and techniques from Nikki, and strongly recommend her books and patterns (and classes if you’re in Melbourne or online classes on Creativebug) if you want to learn how to make bags well. All the tips she teaches can be applied to sewing any type of bag, and you can often apply those skills to other types of sewing as well. Nikki knows her stuff and has a number of formal qualifications and plenty of experience.

Oh, the little buckle on the front that provides a closure for the bag came from Jimmy Buttons. That place is a whole other story – I have never seen so many trims, buttons, buckles, closures, etc in one place – but with highly eccentric owners who apparently prefer to sell in bulk! On the advice from a shop assistant who was trying to sort the shelves (and wasn’t allowed behind the counter) I left the money for my single buckle on the unattended counter and quickly left.

Actually, a magnetic or clip closure would have been much better than that buckle – threading the strap through it is a bit of a pain.  I’d adapt that if I sewed this bag up again.  So in summary, this bag isn’t perfect, but it’s not bad either for a first effort in leather, all sewn on a domestic machine without any special tools.

I rather enjoy sewing bags.  Never any fitting issues, making something useful.  Generally I turn to one of the many brilliant bag patterns by Nicole Mallalieu of You Sew, Girl!  But late one night when browsing the internet, possibly after a glass or two of wine, I decided to press the buy button on the Grainline Stowe Bag.

This bag is styled so beautifully in the website photos, and looked to be a good project bag. The description on the website is as follows:

BAG DETAILS – Designed by Fringe Supply Co., purveyors of fine knitting supplies, Stowe is the ideal project bag – whatever your project may be! The main compartment is perfect for works-in-progress while the many side pockets organize small tools, patterns & notebooks. It may have been designed with knitting in mind but you’ll find it equally useful for a variety of purposes from travel to everyday!  Techniques involved include sewing a straight seam and applying bias binding.

SUGGESTED FABRICS – Medium weight woven fabrics such as denim, linen, twill, and canvas. Fabrics over 9oz are not recommended for this pattern because of potential sewing machine difficulty.

NOTIONS – Thread, double fold bias binding 1/4″ to 3/8″ wide: Small bag requires 1 1/4 yds. Large bag requires 1 2/3 yds.

Eventually I printed off the pattern and taped it together, pulled some denim out of stash, pulled some pretty quilting cotton out of stash, made a whole lot of double fold bias binding (I think I used the 25mm bias tape maker) and sewed up some Stowe bags. I sewed both the small and the large.

So, they look rather cute, don’t they? I really like the bias bound handles and the way that they fold into the side gussets. I also rather like applying bias binding. I did it the way I usually do, by sewing it to the wrong side first then wrapping it around to the front and top-stitching it down about a mm away from the edge. This keeps it all neat and there are no issues with accidentally missing any spots.

However, there is a WHOLE LOT of bulk and raw edges in the bottom of this bag if you make it according to the instructions. It’s an unlined bag, so all those edges are visible. I overlocked the seams, and stitched the thick triangles of denim down to the base to secure them, but it’s all so heavy! Remember that there are pockets on the inside of the bag, so that bottom seam and the side seams have four layers of denim sewn together in lots of places. Add a few folded sections and that is a whole lot of fabric.

There is one upside to all that bulk – it helps the bag to keep it’s shape and makes it nice and square and work well as a project bag. I gave the small bag to my mum, and she’s been using it quite satisfactorily. So I decided to sew another small bag and see if I could improve things a little. This time I butted the pocked piece to the main body piece so that I could just fold the pocket back up against the body after sewing one seam between two thicknesses between the front and back of the bag rather than having four thicknesses along that bottom seam.

Now the inside bottom seam looks like this:

No raw edges along that seam and much less bulk. However, I didn’t figure out what to do with the side seams to improve things there and forced my poor overlocker and machine to deal with the layers.

So, the final verdict on this pattern? Okay, the denim that I used was probably right on the edge of the maximum weight possible, so I didn’t make things easy. I really like the handles and the bias binding finish, the internal pockets (sewn directly to the outer of the bag, but you can’t see the stitching on this denim) and the boxy structure. I really dislike the bulk and exposed folded corners on the inside, and think there would definitely be another (better) way to do this. I’m happily using my little Stowe bag – it is an excellent small project size – so I suppose that overall the pattern is not a bad pattern – but it’s not a great one either. It is however rather expensive for what it is, especially given the suggested construction method, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find similar patterns as free tutorials online.

If you want to make bags – simple through to more advanced – I highly recommend Nicole Mallalieu‘s books You Sew, Girl! and The Better Bag Maker.  (This is where I say that I know Nicole personally but honestly I wouldn’t be giving these a plug if I didn’t mean it).  The great thing about her patterns and books is that she teaches you techniques so that you know how to do things like reduce bulk where it matters, and how to get a really good finish on what you make.  She’s a qualified fashion designer and pattern maker with years and years of experience and it really shows in what you can learn from her patterns and books.  Next time I’m temped to press the “buy” button on a pattern like the Stowe I’ll be heading straight to my bookshelf and pulling out The Better Bag Maker instead.