My First Foray into Bag Making!

I've been watching Sara Lawson with Sew Sweetness for several months.  I love her personality, openness and giving nature.  I've binged watched all of her videos and finally made time to try a bag.

Me being the somewhat cheap person I am decided to try one of her free patterns first.  And of course I had to use cheap fabric because if I completely failed, then I wouldn't be out much.  I'm not sure what I was thinking when I picked out my fabric, but then again, fabric selection has never been my strong point.


Really Lori??? Watermelons???? 

I think at the moment I was picking out the fabric, I thought I would give this purse to my four year old granddaughter.  However, if I was going to do that, I probably should have reduced the size to 75%.  Sara has a great and very active Facebook group that is not only supportive but offers great advice.  One thing I've seen mentioned several times is making bags smaller for kids.  So anyway, that's my excuse for picking watermelons!

The free pattern I made is called the Oriole Bag.  Sara's instructions and videos make it a fairly straightforward process.

First I printed and cut out the pattern and pattern pieces:

 Sara gives great instructions on how to print and assemble the pattern pieces.

Sara uses a marker to draw around the patterns, but I couldn't get my marker to show up very well so I pinned.  That works just as well to.

All my pieces cut out and ready to go!

One part where I struggled was sewing the foam on with an 1/8 inch seam.  My machine does not like 1/8 inch seams with foam!

Added my pocket!

 Sara recommended cutting out the space for darts, but I didn't want to cut the pattern so I marked the top of the dart and made a pinhole at the point and marked there.

 I drew lines from the top to the dot at the point.

Ready to sew those darts!

This is where I had the most difficulty.  Sewing the darts on the lining went fine.  It was when I went to sew the darts on the main front and back pieces with the foam that I struggled.  I had a hard time getting the fabric to fold with the foam.  The first two darts I sewed had to be removed because I didn't get all the fabric in the dart.  It's kind of hard to explain, but the fabric didn't fold well with the foam.

To solve my problem I removed the 1/8 inch stitching (that I worked so hard on), sprayed a little 505 spray and smoothed the fabric.  Using the 505 held the fabric to the foam just enough so I could fold over the dart.

Added my first magnetic snap!  Thanks to Sara's instructions, it was a piece of cake, or maybe a slice of watermelon!

My finished bag! Making the adjustable strap was surprising easy.   Love the style of bag, still not sure about the watermelons.  I've always said I struggle selecting fabric and this really proves it!

I loved making the bag and Sara's pattern was very well written and with the video makes it almost foolproof.  I'll definitely make more of her patterns.  Next up is the The Baker Street Bag.  I've watched the video a couple of times and it actually looks fairly easy.

Have you tried any of Sara's patterns?  Do you consider yourself a bag lady?

Happy Sewing,

Lori