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)

The handbag continues,

Over the weekend I got a lot of time to work on my handbag. Richard had left on Friday to go to a conference and doesn't get home until tonight so I've been on my own and doing whatever I feel like when I feel like. And what I felt like doing is making my handbag.

I decided to make this handbag from the Yoko Saito book called Strolling along paths of green.

I mentioned in my last post how I had appliquéd the front panel. Then I decided to keep to the pattern design and add the little leaves around the outer border, Even though the fabrics I was using are quite different than those pictured in the book.

I auditioned two different sizes and decided on the smaller size to fit well within the outer edge, because I wanted to be sure that I wouldn't lose the ends of them into the seam allowances.

There was no way I was going to hand appliqué such tiny pieces so I used fusible web to attach them.

I used machine blanket stitch to go around all the edges.

I did spend some time and embroidering the little stem and white berries.

I decided to do hand quilting all around the cat faces.

I wasn't sure what to quilt in the background, so I ended up just doing some almost vertical lines.

For the back panel I really liked the combination of the brown and white lattice fabric and the cat fabric so I just reversed the placement of the fabrics from that used on the front.  

Lots of echo quilting around the panel, and I used the lines on the brown fabric as a guide for the pumpkinseed design.

The interior lining is pretty bright fabric, this is a photo showing the gusset being attached.

It wasn't too hard to sew these pieces together. 

Then I went around each side panel and attached binding to cover the raw edges of the seams.

A couple of handles later and turned inside out, and voilà a new handbag.

You know how you always critique something after you're finished making it?

I am now resisting the urge to tell you the different things I would do next time, and will just enjoy having it finished.