pouch with lining and zip tutorial

I printed some fabric with my berries lino blocks and made 3 pouches with zips using the fabric. Here's how to make the pouch...

First cut out the pieces - 2 pieces for the outer fabric and 2 for the lining. I drew around a pattern that is 15cm tall and 20cm wide at the base (15cm wide at the top),(about 6 x 8 inches).  You can save and print and use this template I have drawn:

                                       

Then lay: a)the outer fabric right side up, b)a zip across the top edge of the pouch facing down and c)the lining material, right side down, on top of the zip.  Pin together.

   

Put a zipper foot on your sewing machine and stitch the fabric and zip together.

   
Turn the stack upside down and repeat sewing the zip to a fabric and lining sandwich on the other side.  Open the fabric out from the zip and iron it away from the centre.






Then put the normal foot back on the sewing machine and top stitch either side of the zip - this holds the fabric back from getting caught in the zip.






Next - this is important!  Unzip the zip halfway (or you won't be able to turn your bag the right way out later on).






Then pull the outer pieces together (right sides together) and pin them, and the lining pieces together and pin them.

Sew around the whole pouch, leaving a gap about 3 inches wide at the bottom of the lining.  When you come to the zip, just sew over it, ensuring that the zip is pressed down flat in one direction (towards the lining or towards the outer fabric) and the fabric is lined up underneath (without one side pulled higher than the other).

Trim the corners off the pouch and lining material - this makes it less bulky after you turn the bag out.

Turn the pouch right-side out, through the gap in the bottom of the lining.  Check the pouch looks sewn correctly from the outside, then when you're happy with it sew up the gap in the lining by pinching the fabric together and top stitching along the gap (the stitching will be visible, but inside the pouch).

   

And that's it!  After writing that I feel like it's more complicated to explain than to make!  Try it and you'll get the hang of it after a few times.  Happy crafting!

Indian block print

My friend Philippa gave me an old Indian wooden print block last Autumn, knowing my love of hand printing.  I went to visit her last weekend, so I used the wooden block to print onto fabric and made it into a clutch purse to give to her.

 

 

 

 

I inked the block with a bright pink fabric ink I had mixed up, rolled the colour onto the block and then stamped it onto the green lined fabric that I had cut out already to make the purse.

 

This is the finished purse.

button purse

I made a simple button-fastening purse, using my shell block-printed fabric.

First I cut out 3 pieces of fabric - for the purse, the lining and the button catcher.  Then I sewed the bottom of the fabric and lining together and pinned the button catcher upside down on the top of the right side of the outer fabric.

 

 

I folded the bottom of the fabric to the height that I wanted the purse to be (the top with the button catcher pinned on it will be the flap), then folded the bottom of this fabric into an M-shape, with the lining on top of it, to make the purse wider at the base.  Then I folded the lining fabric on top again, up to the button catcher and sewed it all on 3 sides, leaving a gap to turn it inside-out.

I turned it inside-out and top stitched across the gap, and finally added a button by hand.

Thanks to http://www.liaspace.com/2010/
05/tutorial-simple-lined-pouch.html whose online tutorial I adapted the instructions from.

clasp pouch

Well, I finally got around to making a finished clasp pouch, as I learned on the bag-making course at Morley College last autumn (I made a couple during the course but hadn't quite got it right until the end and didn't have time to finish off the final pouch until now).  I had the pattern pieces for 3 bags, and now have finished one completely...

 

First I cut out the pattern and marked on it where I was going to sew, using the clasp to check where to stop sewing the base of the bag together.

 

I also sewed the lining and a piece of calico together (the lining is a thin muslin so I backed it with some calico)...

... and mitred the corners of the lining and bag material.

 

Here's the finished pouch.  It's about 6 inches wide.  Aside from help in the bag-making course at Morley, I also followed the guidelines of this great online tutorial to make the bag:

http://u-handbag.typepad.com/uhandblog/2006/12/purse_frames_de.html

I haven't included full details here of how I made this clasp pouch, but if you go to that tutorial, it has great guidelines.

making bags

I started a 12-week course about sewing bags 2 weeks ago, at Morley College in Waterloo, because I want to make the fabric that I print into small bags and pouches. Here are some sketches for bag designs that I drew in the last class:

I'm going to use material that I printed previously.  Here are 2 photos of a make-up bag that I made 2 years ago, using fabric that I printed with an autumn leaves design, using screenprinting and discharge binder to print the lighter mustardy colour of the leaves onto the dark blue linen.

 

I only made two of these pouches 2 years ago - one for myself and one for my mum.  Now I'm doing this bag-sewing course to learn to sew and finish the projects properly.  I just taught myself how to make this make-up pouch, using a pattern from the internet, and although it came out well, you can see that the zip insert and the lining could be done more beautifully.

I also have some of this block-printed shell-pattern fabric left (not as much as in the photo) that I printed 2 years ago, and sewed up into a simple tote bag as a present for a friend:

 

 

I have used up almost all of both the autumn leaves and the shell fabric, so I need to print some more to make into the new bags.  The shell print is simpler to make, as I can do it at home with the lino blocks, so I will start with that first of all, and hope to make up some lovely professionally finshed bags soon!