New Everyday Bag

A couple of years ago I had a great little bag for everyday wear - it was just big enough to hold my drink bottle, wallet, phone and keys.  Unfortunately it fell apart on me and I had to throw it out.  I've made numerous bags since then but they've all ended up too big or too bulky and I never want to reach for them.  I've still got one that I use everyday that's a bit smaller - just fits wallet, phone and keys but that's getting a bit old too so it was about time I made a new one.

So the first thing to do was to figure out what size I wanted.  Unfortunately I seem to have thrown out that old perfect one so I couldn't measure it for size so I gathered all my other bags together and worked it out by a process of elimination.

It needs to be bigger than my small bag, but smaller than my big bag, about the same size as my teal bag, but with a longer strap and less bulky - you get the drift.  I finally came up with the dimensions I wanted and then it was time to think about fabric.

The original bag was made from patchwork corduroy with no interfacing so it was quite soft but still quite sturdy.  This is the larger version of the bag that I do still have and use (though it's looking a lot more worse for wear now!).

Unfortunately, I'm out of corduroy scraps otherwise I would have done that again cause I really love these bags.  But in the spirit of this I decided I would do patchwork again, this time in cotton scraps and actually interface it so it has just a touch more structure.

I headed for my scraps bin and started picking out my favourite fabrics.

A little bit of the map fabric from my Rue dress, some of the peacock fabric from my cathedral bag, the starry night fabric donated by the town hall to my sewing class, the bird fabric chosen by my best friend when she was in town, plus a couple of other scraps from my sewing class in a similar colourway.  As I was sorting through my scraps I found a small piece of the fabric I used to make shoes a couple of years ago.  The two scraps had beautiful flower pattern that I thought would make a fantastic centerpiece to the bag - one of each side and they were the perfect size that I could use that, and then patchwork a border of 2"squares around it and the bag should be just the right size. 

And so I started cutting 2.5"squares and laying them out until I got a perfect arrangement.  I sewed the two patchwork faces together plus a strip of squares to use as the sides and the bottom, interfaced them using just a medium weight interfacing and then sewed the main part of the bag together.

Then onto the lining.  I found a plain blue cotton to use as lining plus another cool scrap of music note fabric - donated to my sewing class. 

I added a zipper separating the lining into two pouches a smaller zipper pouch on one side and the main pocket bag.

To make the top of the bag I made up another strip of patchwork, cut it down the center and added a zipper.  The blue lining was added to hide the zipper tape and then the patchwork was sewed to the bag along the two long edges.

Now to make the strap - I will admit I cheated a bit here and rather than using all 2.5"squares I used some longer strips to get the strap to the length I wanted. 

Once my strap was made and turned inside right sandwiched it in between the top and the sides of the bag and sewed in in place.  I was really pleased with how neat it turned out!

The final step was the attach the lining.  I turned it all inside out and sewed the lining to the top all except for a gap along one long edge.  I used this to then turn the bag back inside right and then hand sewed the gap closed.

Not too shabby for a mornings work.  I love how this bag turned out.  It is big enough to fit my drink bottle, but not to large to carry around if I don't have it.  Hopefully It'll become my new go to bag.