Had been wanting to make a bag out of 1 piece of fabric for a while but in a different design than the triangle origami bag.
Was going for a whimsical mermaid look so sailor Zoey is modeling it,
The design:
In order for the triangle panels to lay vertically, needed to cut the fabric like this:
The plan:
The materials:
- Charmeuse like scales on netting
- Scottie dog cotton
- white cotton canvas
- cotton rope
Had originally thought to use double sided interfacing to adhere the mermaid fabric to the canvas but the netting underneath was too delicate to iron.
Instead, ironed interfacing to the canvas.
Stitched the canvas on the wrong side of the mermaid.
For some reason had a bit of extra fabric on the left side so cut it off (which was a bad idea).
Pinned the 2 corners to one side. And realized with the sides of the canvas unsewn, it felt wrong… The sharp sides of the canvas were poking out.
Sewed the canvas together into a bag. This would have been much easier to do without having first attached the mermaid fabric to it.
And for whatever reason, one of the narrow sides was missing about 1.5 inches so had to add a patch. Fortunately with the Scottie lining on one side and the mermaid on the other, the addition isn’t visible. But it was annoying.
Pinned the outer piece together and stitched.
Put the 2 pieces of the lining and sewed the sides. Should have remembered to add a pocket to one of the sides first.
Made a basic pocket and added a cocofiona label (since it is only fair coco gets her own bag)
it looks better when coco is in lower case.
Found the center of the lining and measured 1 inch down. Added 2 layers of canvas and interfacing to reinforce the clasp.
Marked where the cuts needed to be made. (It looks a bit like a Tie-fighter?)
Added both clasps.
Attached the lining to the outer.
Did not pay enough attention to the way all of the scales lay.
So had to take 2 sections apart and resew them.
There is extra netting on the mermaid fabric so zo got a headband. She has a 50’s vibe?
Boxed the corners of the lining. Next time would do this before attaching the lining to the outer.
Flipped bag right side out and sewed lining closed.
The top rows of scales were floating up due to the weight from attaching the lining; so had to top stitch.
Bent 2 titanium needles and had to hand feed the fabric because there were too many layers of fabric – the lining, 5 layers of mermaid from the folding, canvas, interfacing. Needed to use the thinnest needle available to get through all layers cleanly.
Coco tried to be supportive.
Punched in holes around 1.5 inches from the top, 3 inches from each side. This hole punch wasn’t large enough for the eyelets so had to use scissors as well.
Hammered in eyelets. Using pliers to hold the tool in place helped not hitting fingers.
Added the rope/ straps and used this glue to tuck in scales near the eyelets. The glue didn’t do a whole lot though so not sure if it was worth the effort.
Zo looking like these Scotties with a green bow.
Added a starfish charm to give it a nautical look.
When he saw this fabric, the dogs’ dad thought it looked like a flapper or a bird – an ostrich to be precise. He played a clip from season 4, episode 1 of Archer (the Bob’s Burgers crossover) where Cheryl thinks she sees an ostrich. Throughout the entire sewing process, I kept hearing ‘do you think that’s wise?’.
So was hoping the rope straps and the starfish made it look less… ostrich.
The straps are long enough to be a shoulder bag but can be wrapped around the hand to shorten the length.
Can also make it a (short) crossbody.
This was an interesting project. Despite the planning there were a number of things that went wrong (part of it is not looking at the plan while sewing so forgetting some steps… )
Would totally make this design again but not in this fabric – the dogs’ dad kinda ruined it for me by calling it an ostrich. (But points to him for knowing flapper so not really annoyed)
Next time maybe will make this design in a microsuede. Or a white canvas and dye it a blue ombré.