Variation on a bucket bag

One of the basic bag shapes is a bucket bag, where a cylinder is sewn to a shaped base.  This is a photo from the book by Yoko Saito called, New Classic Patch Work

One of the bags I love in it is called the Tailgate tote,

It uses this really cute little block,

The tall, tapered shape appealed to me, but I wasn't in the mood to do all of the piecing of the little blocks.  Instead I pieced a very simple stack of rectangles, laid them on the background fabric, and covered the raw edges with ribbon.

The sewing was pretty straightforward

I used Annie's soft n Stable for the batting,

Had some fun with a combination of straight line and free motion quilting in a wood grain pattern,

The handles started as rectangular fabric covered soft n stable, with the middle area rolled over and stitched to make that part more ciylindrical

The side seams are covered in an integrated seam binding, but the seams at the base are just zig-zagged.  I suppose I could have slip stitched on another circle of fabric to cover them, but....

I'm happy to report that I have already used it as a take along knitting project bag!   

I still like the shape a lot, so perhaps I will do a peiced taupe version at some point!, maybe varying the size a bit,
I'm starting to wonder where to put all the bags that I've been sewing lately.  Any good ideas for bag organization and storage?

Basic Bag Shapes

A few days ago I came up upon a blog written by L I ER here who has sewn a lot of handbags. She has categorized handbags into a number of types. I like this idea. I concur with her categorization, for the most part.    You can find her series on bag making starting here.   She focuses on making bags from a garment sewer's perspective, i.e. using heavier fabrics and lining everything beautifully.  (I tend to make bags from a quilter's perspective, using quilter's cottons, more seam bindings and fewer separate linings.)

The gist of it is to ignore all the little details such as size, straps, and to look at the basic bag structure.

 I have modified her categorizations a bit in my list, but it is not an exact science, obviously,

this is a list of bag categories.

1.  the flat bag
     the simplest type, just a front and a back.  It has no depth 

       Lots of variations

2.  the boxed bottom bag
     a flat bag is sewn extra wide, and then the base is created by "boxing" the bottom -- sewing a seam perpendicular to the side seam

3. The bucket bag
    a cylinder sewn to a base.

4. the wrapped Bag.
    the front, base and back of the bag are one piece.  Two sides are sewn on to the main piece.

5. the gussetted bag,
    the front and bag are separate pieces, the sides and bottom are a gusset that wraps around the 3 sides of the front and back.

6.  flat bag with darts.
    this starts out like a flat bag, often with a rounded form which has  triangular darts sewn to create depth in the bag.

7.  Double boxed cylinder bag.
     this is a rectangle that is sewn into a cylinder, then manipulated so that it becomes like a shoe-box shape.  think of a make-up bag, or a pencil case,

8. bags of unusual construction
    sometimes you will come across a bag made out of various units, such as a gored bag, Another example could be shapes like  orange segments, or perhaps a lot of hexagons sewn together to make a 3-D form...

Of course coming upon such a list makes me immediately determined that I have to sew one of each style in order to fully understand the structure types.  

(Let's not even get started on all the types of straps that Lier goes through on her blog, here)

Gathered clutch bag

 
For this little bag, I used a tutorial found at Noodlehead, who has written many excellent tutorials for various handbags, here

This one is her

Noodlehead tutorial

this is such a cute project.  A lot of the fun is in picking out the fabrics to use.

In my little bag, I replaced the accent fabric with some wide ribbon that I had on hand,

I had so much fun making it, that I went on to make a larger, co-ordinating zipper clutch,

I did line it, but I didn't use batting, which I should have, in order to give it more body,

Oh well, they make a cute set,

Maybe they would be good to use as travel bags to store smaller items.

Making zipper bags is so much fun!

A simple bag

Another handbag, but an unlined one this time. 

It is from the same book that I have mentioned  Strolling Along Paths of Green, , by Yoko Saito.

Looks pretty much the same as in the book, right? Just made from a  different style of fabrics.  Oh yes and no appliqué,

In the book she recommends that you make a practice copy out of muslin or just plain fabric to get the hang of how the bag is sewn, since it is not a typical construction method.

This is a good idea. It was a little tricky, but it wasn't hard. I think it could be tweaked to make bags in different sizes.

This show a water bottle on to so you can get a sense of the scale,

And here it is folded up, so it could be taken shopping! 

I don't think it's big enough to contain library books because of the size of the opening. It might be okay to fit in a magazine, since the magazine would be flexible.

I sort of want to make another one.

this handbag stuff is sort of addictive.