A Big Bag

A friend of mine has a pre-schooler AND twin toddlers. Which means she has a lot of stuff to carry around. During the summer we went on a visit to a local park and I fell in love with her bag. It was a big bag with a generous wide strap and a tie closure. I asked where she got it and she said a friend had made it for her.

Having just had success with my ‘Swag bag’ I thought – yes you guessed it – ‘I could do that’. I tried to sketch the bag from memory. There was no join at the top of the bag to the straps as they were all cut out of one piece of fabric with a hole in the middle for the shoulder and arm – so only the back and the front were sewn together in one continuous seam. However I wanted the bag to be lined and so had joins at the straps for the lining – stitched into the main bag for strength – and the rest was one piece. In the end the lining was slightly too big for the bag so the stitching is very obvious but hopefully I will learn from that.

inside bag

big bag

Rather than a tie fastening I thought that the material I chose would suit a button fastening much better and I’m quite proud of the result. My one problem is that I didn’t put a pocket in so I will need to add a purse type pocket to put all those essentials – like my phone and my lip gloss – in so they don’t get lost in the bag. It is great for carrying a change of clothes for my son (and some fruit, and a drink, and his cars, and a book, and another drink …).

I didn’t have the foresight to make a ‘pattern’ so I will need to attempt another one soon whilst I can still remember how I did it.