Teal Leather Handbag

Quite some time ago I found a piece of teal kid leather at Sewfisticaed - it was a beautiful colour and so soft and lovely I knew I had to have it.

I knew that I wanted to make it into a new bag - all my bags are getting a bit old and I desperately needed a new one but I never managed to get around to making it up.

Then the Pattern Review website announced that it was doing a handbag contest so I figured that this would be the time to get going on this project. 

I figured that an all teal leather bag might be a bit too much even for me, so I headed back to the fabric store looking for some contrasting fabrics.  I found a nice grey suede that I figured would work great on the bottom of the bag - I wanted something a bit sturdier than the kid leather on the bottom.  I then found a couple of different cottons that would be a good match  - in the end I used the cotton with a zig zag print in striped of teal, green, grey, black and white.

The next step was to design the bag.  I wanted the bag to be small enough to use everyday, but large enough to fit my wallet, phone, keys, a water bottle and occasionally a book.  I decided on 28cm wide x 30cm high x 9cm deep.

It ended up being a bit bigger than I had anticipated, but that's not a problem. 

I  wanted a rounded top on the bag and sketched out the basic shape.  To continue the curve theme I added a curved seam where the grey bottom attaches to the teal leather, and then added pockets to the front and back of the bag also using a curved shape.

Then I had to figure out how to put it all together.  I created the basic pattern pieces and started cutting my material.  From the grey suede I cut a rectangle for the bottom, two rectangles with curved upper edges for front and back, and two smaller rectangles for the sides. 

I cut two curved teal leather pieces for the front and back and two rectangles for the sides. From the  zip zag cotton material I cut two full front and back pieces and a rectangle for the top piece.

To create the front and back pockets I then cut second pieces of the curved front/back pieces to face the teal leather.  

Then I had to think about what to line it with.  I had bought another piece of cotton that I thought I could use as a lining, but I decided that I was a bit to heavy weight and so rummaged through my stash and came up with a matching teal linen.  I cut the back, bottom and front from one piece and then two side pieces and a top piece.

Before I started putting everything together I decided to do a bit of embellishment on the teal leather.  A while ago I made a bag out of cream leather and teal vinyl, cutting out the leather to show the vinyl underneath.  I found the cut outs that had come out of that bag and decided that they would look really nice on the teal leather.   These cut outs were first glued in place and the hand stitched along the edges with a running stitch and two strands of teal thread.

Next up was procuring hardware.  For this I headed to the local Savers where I found two handbags that I thought could give me some of the hardware I needed.  From the first bag I salvaged 2 D-rings to attach the straps, 2 grey zippers - one for the top and one for the back pocket.  A zipper pull for the top zipper, a magnetic snap for the front pocket and the two leather handles that I joined to make one long handle.  

Once  I had everything it was time to start putting it together.  I started with the front and back pockets.  The first pocket was easy.  First I interfaced the zig zag cotton front pocket piece and then sewed it to the the teal leather along the top curved edge and then top stitched along that edge.  I installed one half of the magnetic snap onto the cotton (I almost ruined it here by thinking that I needed to install the snap in the teal leather.  I did cut a small hole before I realised what I was doing but a piece of interfacing ironed onto the back and you can't really see the cut anymore).  The backing piece of cotton was then interfaced and the other side of the magnetic snap installed and I basted all layers together around the outside.

The back pocket was a little harder as I wanted a zipper in this one.  I used the same basic procedure to put the pocket together, but installed one of the grey zippers about 1" below the bottom of the curve. I also made a lining for this pocket out of the teal linen so I could fully enclose the zipper.

I cut the top piece of the bag down the middle to insert the zipper into the main bag. The bag.  

Inside the bag is another small zipper pouch and two other pouches.  

This whole panel was salvaged from the second bag I bought at Savers and jut top stitched onto the linen lining of the bag.

All of the outside pieces of the bags were interfaced with a medium weight interfacing. I found at the end that I should have used a heavier interfacing for the zip zag cotton pieces as the top of the bag struggles to hold it's shape.

To attach the straps to the bag I stitched the D rings onto the side panels of the bag using scraps of the teal leather and then I bought some metal hardware to attach the  existing grey leather straps to the D ring.

I sewed the two straps together at the top using another piece of the grey leather salvaged from one of the other bags to hide the join. 

The straps could have been a bit longer, however I'm happy with the way this turned out.  I've been using the bag every day for the last couple of weeks now and i'm very happy with it.

2 pairs of Flared Pants

 I came to the realisation the other day that I have very few (read none) good fitting  pants in my wardrobe anymore.  Time to do something about that.  I went into to my fabric stash and found a piece of corduroy that I bought some time ago.  This corduroy is a great colour.  A sort of turquoise/aqua colour but darker.  I've been meaning to make this into a pair of pants for ages.

I pulled out my old pants pattern, cut it out of the cord fabric (with an extra 1" on each side seam to allow for any growth in girth), basted it together and tried it on.....it felt terrible, the back rise felt way too small, the legs don't seem to sit right, the whole thing seems to creep down my back if I sit down or walk upstairs. Now I'm not sure what's going on here - I used this pattern for my brown cords and I still love the way these feel on so I'm not sure what the problem is?

So I decided to go back to the drawing board.

I pulled out my pattern pieces and re-traced it onto a new piece of paper.  I then went through my pattern stash and pulled out every pant pattern I could find and then - lining them up at the natural waist marks - I traced each pattern piece over my pattern to see how they differed.

The main difference I found was the angle of the back crotch seam.  Mine was angled out a lot further than all of the other patterns.

Whilst I was doing all this investigation I found in my possession a copy of McCalls 9517.

I never realised this before, but view A of this pattern has a seam down the back of the leg.  Now this is one place that I really struggle to fit with pants so I decided that I would make up this pair of pants and see if I could use the seam to get my pants to fit better.  Luckily the copy of this pattern that I have is for a 40" hip.  I have a 42" hip, but based on a comparison of this pattern and my pants pattern I decided that it would be close enough (I've noticed that these old patterns always have a lot of ease in them) and traced out the pattern.

The only changes that I made were:

• cut 4" off the length of the legs,
• since I was planning on putting a waistband on I cut 2" off the top of the pattern pieces
• I split the front pattern piece down the middle to create a seam down the front to match the seam down the back.

Now the problem was that I had already cut out my fabric in my original pants pattern.  I had enough left to cut out new back pieces, but not the front pieces.  So I took my previously cut pattern pieces, pulled out all the stitching and was able to just get the 4 front pieces out of the 4 original pieces of my pants.

I basted the pants together and was pretty impressed with the fit.  I still needed to do a few tweaks though:

• The first thing I noticed was that the rise was still way too high - with the 2"cut off the top it fitted as it was supposed to by the pattern picture so I decided to just go with it and make a faced finish rather than a waistband. 
• The pants fitted fairly nicely around the hips but were a bit too big across the front, so I took in each front seam about 3/8" the entire way down.
• The pants were still a little baggy around the thighs so I shaped both the side seams and the back seams so that they fit snuggly through the thigh and then flared out.  The flare is probably a bit more than I would normally have chosen but I decided to go with it anyway.  
• I scooped out the crotch curve at the bottom so that it is almost a right angle now.
• 4" was obviously a bit too much to take off the bottom of the leg, these barely skim the ground un-hemmed so I added about 2" back onto the length of the pants.

I transferred all the changes (except the length) to my new pattern pieces before going ahead and sewing the pants up.

I pretty much went my own way from here rather than following the pattern for finishing.  I added a zip fly to the front (which took me ages to figure out for some reason - I must have spent close to 3 or 4 hours trying to get that fly in).

Unfortunately after wearing the pants for about 2 days the stupid zipper broke - I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet so for the time being I've just sewed the fly closed - I can still get them on and off with a little wriggling.  One day I'll get around to fixing them properly, but until then....

I added back patch pockets with just a simple top stitched design.

And front slash pockets that extend into the fly.   I finished the top of the pants with an interfaced facing piece that is top stitched down around the back but not the front. (It would have interfered with the pockets otherwise).

To deal with the length issue I cut two strips out of my leftover fabric and created a band around the bottom of each leg.

They're still a smidge short, but that was all the fabric I had.

Overall I love the way these turned out,  As I said before they're probably a bit too flared, but hey, everyone needs a bit of flare in their life!

Looking at these pictures I think the front of the leg is a bit too tight - hence the creases - and the corduroy has a real nap which shows up creases really badly, but on the positive side I love the way the back of these pants look.

Once I knew that this pattern worked I got started on my second pair of pants.  I got a job interview and realised that I have no pants that are nice enough to wear so wanted to make a good pair of pants.  I trawled through my stash but I had no material with the yardage I needed so I  took a trip up to my favourite discount fabric store and picked out a beautiful wool material.  Its black with just a hint of a chevron pattern and very faint blue stripes.  I knew this material would need lining so I picked up a beautiful piece of rayon as well that is patterned in blues and butterflies.

I used my new pants pattern and made up the pants in the wool material, this time with just a simple lapped zip and really basic slash pockets at the front.

And then again as a lining in the rayon.  I joined the two pairs of pants together around the waistband and then added a piece of elastic onto the seam allowance as the pants were quite heavy fully lined and I didn't want them falling down.

These pants came together quite easily and I really do love them. They feel so luxurious to wear.

Having worn both pairs of pants for about a month now there are a couple of extra modifications that I think need to be made:

•  I think I still need to do some tweaking with the front crotch curve as the front doesn't quite sit as I would like.
• I would like an extra just 1/2"-1"  rise  right at the back seam - it seems to dip just a smidge. 
• I need about 1" less rise at the front - the rise at the moment is good whilst standing, but when I sit they tend to roll down about 1" so I think eliminating this inch would be a good thing.

Just to round everything out - you may have noticed that the shirt I'm wearing is the same as my lining material for  the black pants - I used my leftovers to create this simple little top.  I used my basic pattern for a top with a seam right under the bust - this allows me to put in two simple bust darts and creates a nice form fitting top.  Unfortunately I forgot that that pattern was drafted for knit fabrics so it ended up way too small.  I managed to salvage it by adding in an 1.25" wide piece under each arm.  Its not perfect but it works.  The front and back V necks are finished with a simple facing and the arm holes are just turned and stitched. I've found myself reaching for this top many times in the last couple of weeks since I made it.