How Did I Live Without It?: Sewing Lessons - Lesson Two: The Shoulder-bag

Difficulty - Easy

Following up last week's book cover, this week we are making a simple shoulder bag.

For this project you will need:

A sewing machine
Some fabric**
Pins
Scissors
A measuring tape (not a ruler!)

** A note about fabric. You can use pretty much anything to make a bag, but the tougher the fabric the better. I recommend canvas, drill or cotton duck (all basically the same type/weave/weight).

In this lesson you will learn:

How to sew longer seams (well, to get more comfortable with long seams)
How to sew French seams
How to use the zig-zag stitch on your machine

Step One: Work out how big you want your bag to be

This bag is going to be a rectangle, with the short sides at the top and bottom. It will have two cloth straps. Those are the basics. you can decide how big you want to make it and how long you want the straps because all of the sewing is the same regardless of size.

I've cut two rectangles 40 cm x 30 cm for the body of the bag and two long strips 85 cm x 10 cm for the straps. This includes my seam allowances.

Step Two: Long Seams

It's fairly easy to control the fabric and maintain a steady pace over a short distance. It takes more practice to sew accurately over longer distances. More practice, but not a lot more skill.

Lay out the strips you are going to use for the shoulder straps. Press a narrow strip along both of the long sides, wrong sides together. this narrow strip should be about .5 cm - your seam allowance.

Now fold the strap in half longways and press again.

Make sure that the two edges of the strap are even and sew all the way along the edge. To make sure that you catch the seam allowance, line up the edge of the fabric with the edge of the presser foot on the machine and use this edge as your guide rather than the printed lines. If you make sure to watch the fabric rather than the needle and go at a comfortable pace it will be easy to keep the stitches straight.

Take your time. Remember, you don't have to sew quickly to sew well.

Once you have sewn both straps, press them again and set them aside.

Step Three: The Body of the bag - French Seams

Last week we didn't worry about seam edges. This week we will.

Decide where the open edge of your bag will be. Press a very narrow hem along the top - about half the usual seam allowance.

Now fold that edge over and press the same amount again. You should have a neat edge.

If you unfold it, it looks like this:

Press the double folded edge down really well and sew along the top of your bag, using the edge of the presser foot as your guide again.

Unless you have an overlocker/serger, the problem of fraying seams and hanging threads is always going to be there.

After you cut your fabric, it doesn't take long for it to start to do this:

The edges fray and you get loose threads hanging everywhere. Unless you use French seams.

To make a true French seam, lay out to two sides of your bag with the wrong sides together.

Sew along the sides and bottom. Again, you will want to use the edge of your presser foot to guide your seam width.

You should now have a rectangle, sewn on three sides, but with the ragged edges showing on the outside of the bag.

Cut the corners off at the bottom, careful not to cut through the stitches.

Now turn the bag inside-out. Your corners will be lumpy and hard to get out:

Use something with a slightly pointed end like a crocet hook or pen lid to push the point of the corner out. DON'T use something really sharp like your scissors or a knife. You could punch a hole in the fabric. the corner won't be perfectly square, but it will be pretty close.

Press everything.

Now, going just beyond the edge of the presser foot - I've used the first line marked on my machine, sew all around the sides and the bottom again. you need to move slightly beyond the edge of the presser foot to make sure that you are not sewing across the raw edges of the seam. You want to be sure that all of the raw edge ends before the needle.

In the picture below you can see the edge of the seam that traps the raw edges inside.

Turn the bag right side out and use your crochet hook or pen lid to press out the corners again - it will be a bit harder this time because you haven't cut them off, but you can do it. Make sure to press the bag when you are done.

Step Four: Sewing the straps on - The zig-zag stitch

Cut a bit off of each corner of the shoulder straps.

You will be hiding the raw edge at the end by folding it under and if you don't clip off those corners, they are going to have a tendency to stick out. Now, mark where you want your shoulder straps to sit. I recommend that they sit three to four inches from the edge of the bag. the bigger your bag, the further from the edges they should be.

Line up the edge of the strap with the top edge of the bag (*for some reason the following pictures have all come out upside down - I'm not actually sewing these to the bottom of the bag.) you want the long part of the strap to be lying away from the opening of the bag.

Holding the end of the strap even with the top of the bag, fold the strap over so that it hides the raw edge. You should pin this in place, giving yourself three to four inches of overlap. Again - the bigger your bag, the bigger the overlap should be.

Now, look at your machine. Get the instructions out if you need them. You want to find the seam width and the seam length dials. Mine look like this:

Width

Length

For the zig-zag stitch you need to adjust your seam width. At the moment it should be set to 0 - allowing you to sew in a straight line. I've re-set mine to 2, which will give me a narrow zig-zag.

I've also re-set the seam length to 1.5 - very small. I want my stitches to be pretty close together.

Take some of your scrap fabric and try out your zig-zag. The needle seems to move faster on this stitch - it does to me anyway - because it not only moves up and down, but side to side as well. This can be a bit unerving at first, but if you look closely at the presser foot, you'll see that it can actually only move within a very narrow channel. As long as you keep your fingers clear of the presser foot, you'll be fine.

I'm using the zig-zag here because it provides additional strength at a spot that will be under the most strain - where the handles meet the bag. I'm going to make two seams - one at the bottom of my folded strap and one at the top, near the bag opening.