Knitters Large Storage Bag

Welcome to SewVeryEasy, my name is Laura. The other day my daughter asked me to make her a nice

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project bag. She is a great knitter and she wants a bag where she can put everything and keep it all together. Well, that gives me one more reason to get back to my sewing room. Let's make a nice big project bag. My daughter asked me at the perfect time because I just received my Fat Quarter Club in the mail. The club comes with six fat quarters (I'm only going to need four) and it also comes with a really cute pattern.

I'll leave that free pattern aside for next time, but I will definitely use this beautiful fabric. The fabric is from Clothworks. I went through my stash of zippers and was able to find a nice, long, red one. This is an old one; It seems like I picked it from something, but I like to reuse things. I'm also going to use a medium fuse interface. Two fat quarters are needed for the outside of the bag and two fat quarters for the lining. The size of the fat quarters will depend on the size of the garden. If it's a meter, it will be

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r than a yard, but we're looking at 15" by 22".

I'll be able to put them together and I'll have a bag that has a two-tone front. In fact, you can sew them before you even cut them. Place right sides together. Draw a line down the center and then sew on each side of that line. So we can cut that. I have my center line drawn and my two rows of sewing on either side, ¼" from the line. You can rotate cut this or just use a pair of scissors. Now I have both sides done. Press the seam allowance towards the dark. fabric. From here you can do a row of topstitching along the edge.

Once the pieces are together, I like to put my fusible interfacing on first before cutting it. Then I can trim all four pieces to the same size. In this In this case , I am going to use Heat n Bond medium. You will need medium heat with steam. You will need to hold and press it for about 10 to 15 seconds. Before applying the interfacing, press the fabric so that The fabric will not have permanent wrinkles. Once the interfacing has been fused into all four pieces, I'll cut them all the same size, stack them all, and do it at once.

Lay it out, make sure you have the two seams lined up, and that way these edges will match up when the bag is put together. The size of the stock market is not really that important. You can use whatever size you want, so I'll try to maximize the space I have and make the bag as big as I can with the fat quarters, all while keeping the top and bottom and both sides the same. You can use the ruler where you joined the two pieces as a guide, and that will help keep the ruler straight. I'll be able to clip all four layers and that interface at the same time.

I like to rotate my mat so I always have the edge to my right. If you are left-handed, you will want the cuts to go towards your left side. The second cut I will be able to use the ruler I just made. At the moment I don't know what size I'm going to go with. I'm going to keep them all clear. Turn my mat over again and make the next edge, following that straight edge along the bottom. That can also be verified with that seam. As you cut each edge, take a look underneath and make sure all the fabrics have been cut.

That way we know that all the pieces have been cut and we don't have any short pieces underneath. One more turn and I'm going to cut off the top, matching up my two straight edges. I will continually check to make sure all seams have been trimmed. My size ends up being about 21½" by a little over 17½". The sizes are not important as long as all four pieces are the same. We have our two fronts and both sidings identical. From here we must decide which will be the top part of the bag and which will be the bottom part.

I still have all four pieces together. I want the solid fabric to reach the bottom of the bag. You're going to have a flat bottom, so you'll have a little bit on the bottom and then the rest on top. I have the floral one on top and the plain one on the bottom. With all four pieces together, I need to cut some corners off the two bottom parts. My corner squares will be cut at 3½". We will need 3½" from one edge, 3½" from the other, and square them. By keeping all of these layers together, I will cut all of my blocks at the same time.

I cut the bottom square; I'm going to cut the second bottom square in the same way. At the top we need to cut two more small squares, and cut them to 2". The next thing we need to do is find a zipper that matches that size. I have a zipper that is much larger, which is what I want because I want to give it some nice finishing touches at the end. Those little edges can come off of those 3½" squares that we cut out, but we can choose whatever fabric we want. I'm going to use one of the lining fabrics and we'll only need one.

We can take that one and cut. In half, and that will go on the end of the zipper. The first thing I want to do is put the end on the side of the pull. Open that zipper so the pull is not in your way. We're Let's sew this on the end. We'll make the top of the zipper and the right side of the fabric match. We can sew along that edge. That will close the zipper, and then when we pull it back, it extends the front of that zipper. We have the front side of that zipper and the fabric together .

When this opens up, it will give it a nice finish all the way to the end. Do a row of topstitching along the edge of that zipper. That row of topstitching will keep the zipper tape out of the way. We can trim this so it has the same size as the zipper. Now we can do the other side. I'm only going to use about 1" of this decorative fabric on the bag, so I'll make a 1" mark. For now I'm just going to fix it. This will help me measure the size of the zipper end. That 1" mark will reach the top cut, so I'll need at least 1" on the other side.

Trim this zipper so it is about 1½" shorter than this top. I can trim it right away. We want to repeat the same technique on the top of the zipper as on the bottom. Now I have a zipper that will fit a little bit. a bit on the top of the bag. For now, leave them on those ends. Now we need to sew this zipper on the top two parts of the bag, and we want to keep these edges straight. With the zipper on the top, and I can tell because my pull is here: I'm going to fold the zipper over and sew along that edge.

I can center the zipper now because I have that extra. The first row of sewing I want to go as close as possible. I can get to the edge of that zipper, in the top of that bag. With one side done, I'll be able to sew the second side together so my seams are even. I'll sew those two edges together and sew. as close to the edge of the zipper tape as I can. The zipper is now attached. to the top of the bag. When we turn it inside out, we can simply place the liner on top of the bag while it is open.

Make sure the small squares are facing up and keep those 3½" squares facing down. We need to sew the zipper inside the lining. We can do one side at a time. I'm going to remove one lining. The second lining I can fold over. I know that it's going to go on this side, so it's going to go on this side of the zipper. Line up those edges and sew that seam all the way down, just outside the edge, but we can make a larger seam allowance. That's going to join the bag lining and the facing that zipper much more securely.

When we fold that fabric, we have a facing and a lining together and that seam is on the inside. The next lining will go in this position, so we'll take it and fold it. The top of the lining will It will fit to the top of the zipper and when we pull it up we will have the edges together. That other lining and the front of the bag are inside, so we can ignore it. Same thing: bring those edges together and sew a larger seam allowance to that we get into that seam and have a nice, safe top.

We can take them and press them so that they fit snugly against the zipper. Once the lining and facing have moved away from the front of the zipper, you can do a row of topstitching along each side. Once the stitching is done we can sew the bag. We need to have the right sides together of the lining and the right side of the front of the bag. But be sure to open the zipper a little so you can turn your hand when you need to. You only need a little bit. So the front of the bag is going to match and the lining of the bag is going to match.

We have that small cutout we made at the top and the larger cutouts on the edge. From here, I would recommend making the rest of the seams ½". It will give you a little more strength and will be easier to press later. For the front of the bag we sew along one side, along of the bottom and the second side. For the lining we can sew both sides, but when we get to the bottom we are going to need to leave a little opening. An opening of one hand's breadth is going to be a great measurement. For this bag.

I'm just going to put a mark on one side and on the other. I'll be able to sew from that mark to the edge and the other mark to the edge. This is going to leave this little space open. There won't be any seams on those cut corners. We can take that seam allowance. and press it towards the bag. We want to do that on both edges. So we're going to press that seam allowance 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 and turn it right side out. We're going to do that with all the seams, and on this one below we're going to pretend that the seam was there and we're going to fold it over and press it in.

With those edges pressed in, it's going to give it a nice Finish to the outside of the bag when we turn it over. We have many openings that we can press into this floor if we wish. We can put a wooden broomstick, a meter of wood, even a piece of cardboard. We can solve it. Now we will be able to iron that plane. When ironing on top of something we are not going to press anything else on the bag. We can do this with all the seams. This added pressure definitely requires more work, but the end results will be worth it.

Next we are going to make the lower corners. We want those two seams to match, so we take the two corners and pull those two corners and that seam will match. We can put the bag aside, join those seams and they will look good because they are flat. Sew ½". We need to do that on all four corners by just grabbing that corner by pulling on it, and those seams will match up. I like to topstitch at the beginning and end of the seams as I make the bag, just for stability. We have two more seams to do and they will close the top of the bag.

That seam is very similar to how we made the bottom of the bag. The difference is that we have this piece that is sewn together. We want the two sides of the bag to come together, just like than the bottom, so this piece will now become the center. It's going to look a little awkward. Let's take that side and combine it with the center of the zipper pull. We can use it as a handle. The second side will also match with the center of the zipper pull. Those cut edges are going to match up. We just need to ignore the rest of the bag and just focus on this little corner.

Once we have those edges matched, we can trim it so it's out of our way . You can gently manipulate these corners to pop them out. So we have that lining and the front of the bag and that zipper is on the inside, following this seam. If your edges don't match, that's okay. With that nice ½" seam allowance, we'll never know the difference when the bag is finished. We need to topstitch a little at the beginning, then sew right on top of everything and topstitch that end. It ends up looking like the bottom of the bag. The difference is that we have two edges tucked underneath.

Then make the second edge. The bag really has a fun shape. Clean up all the threads and we can turn this bag inside out. we have that opening. We're going to be able to pass through of that zipper opening, and that's why it's very important to open that zipper. Put those bags together. While we have our hand there, we can take the time and Pull out our corners at the bottom and top. Open the zipper to give us more room to work with. Just push those corners out. This is what the bag will look like when turned right side out.

We have a nice big bottom, we have a nice finish to that zipper and the top of the bag has a flat top. We have that bottom part of the bag where we can take those two seams and join them together. You can sew them by hand, but I don't mind just making a row on the sewing machine, and it's done. Our bag is now ready. The materials used were: 1 yard of interlining, four fat quarters, and a zipper that was over 14" long because we were able to trim it. And now we ended up with a nice large project bag.

This is definitely going to look good in the fabric. from my daughter. Thank you for joining me today on SewVeryEasy. Feel free to subscribe and as always, come back. Let's see what we sew next time in the sewing room. Bye for now!