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)

Weekender Travel Bag

A bit amazed today at how gorgeous the weather is, sitting at plus 20 degrees celcius.  In the sunroom for the first time this year, with the windows open....
recovering from my attmpt to put together the Weekender Bag from Amy Butler. 
My general opinion.. this is not a project for the faint of heart.

It all started when we got in a great panel with printed grandmother's flower garden blocks on it. I forgot to take a photo of it before I started cutting it up.

the panel itself is about 30 inches by 44 inches, and you could certainly just use it as a  baby quilt, but I thought I would use it for a tote bag of some sort.

 then, I came upon a tote bag that someone had made called the Weekender Bag, and lo and behold, I already had the pattern at home, but had never tried it. 
I really liked the shape of it, and when I saw it made up in real life, it was a nice size. 

 I wanted to stitch around the pattern on the fabric to make it look more like it had been pieced. The pattern has two side panel pockets that seemed to be a good place to put the panel design.  I made a copy of the pattern piece for the pocket, and cut the panel fabric and the stiffener fabric a bit larger all around that the pattern piece.  I used Annies soft and stable foam instead of Timtex that was called for on the pattern.  I don't think it had been invented yet when the pattern was written, because it is just perfect to use for bags and totes.  I really keeps it's shape, and it is soft as butter to sew through.
You can see how doing the stitching really emphasizes the pattern:

After I had quilted the pieces, I cut them to the right size, using the pattern piece I had made.

 That was the easy part. 
Then, I started to cut out all the other pieces I needed, as well as accumulating the other supplies:  some timtex for the stiff bottom, a 30 inch zipper,

 The bag pattern called for cording to be put in around the edges, so I cut the bias pieces and basted them around 5 meters of 1/4" cotton cording.

 The next five hours passed in a blurry state of studying the instructions, sewing and trying to figure out what I was doing. 
At some point I realized that the cording was just not going to happen for me.  Maybe another time. After all, I do have 5 meters of it. 

 I've gotten it to this stage now, where I have to hand stitch in the lining which I have prepared. 
Parts of this project were pretty easy, others were definitely for a better sewer than me. 

I still like the proportions of the bag, and I will probably try it again, but again probably not with the cording, and minus the lining.  I think I'll make the sizes like a quilt, with the exterior and the lining quilted to the soft and stable, and then just finish the seams rather than adding a whole new lining.  who knows..
On another note, at some point I decided to iron my Timtex to remove a fold crease.  I discovered that my timtex was fusible on one side, so I got some sticky stuff on my iron.
Fortunately I had a tube of this iron cleaner, so I tried it out and it worked wonderfully!

You just squeeze a blob of it onto a rag, and then iron it with your hot, dry iron in circles, and the iron plate is magically cleaned off!  Yay. 

If you have made this Weekender Bag, I salute you.