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)

Yoko Saito

Anybody who is ever seen a Yoko Saito quilt or handbag has never forgotten it. This Japanese quilter has produced an extraordinary number of breathtaking projects.  She has also been prolific in writing books and teaching workshops around the world. She is one of the main quilters working in neutral color ways.

I have a few of her books and they are just so relaxing to look through because of the beauty of her work.

One thing about Japanese quilters is that they love to make handbags.

The book on the left has 10p handbag patterns in it as well as the 78 pieced blocks.

These ones are near the top of my wish list to make,

And from the other book, which has patterns for 19 handbags!!  I hope to someday make this one, 

And this one..

But today, I am embarking on this one...

Isn't it a great shape?

However, I have been dying to use this Catnap fabric from Andover,

I've discovered that it goes really well with some of the Mirabelle fabrics from Fig Tree fabrics,

The pattern is pretty straightforward, and so I begin....

Some pretty simple appliqué of the front panel

I like to use the short little pins.

I noticed that the brown fabric shadowed through the lighter cat fabric, so I trimmed it away after I had finished the sewing,

I will continue my big quilt, but it's fun to have a smaller project on the go too.  

Plus, it is really fun to make handbags!