A Summer Bag

You don't have to be an expert seamstress to make something cute. You can start simple. I am not very good at bags so this was going to be very simple. The fabric was the real star of the show.

I loved this orange and yellow fabric. It was so summery. It was thick cotton and it would make a great bag. I had some round and oval bamboo handles. After I took this picture I decided to use oval handles. These kinds of purse handles are available at fabric stores and on Amazon.

I cut a strip of fabric off the side. I needed to get this grommet out of the way. And I was going to use these narrow strips to attach the handles to the bag.

I used that strip and second strip I cut to make small pieces that I could use to attach the handles. I basically made small tubes about 4 inches long. Stay with me, it's going to make more sense as we go.

I made some fabric and handle sandwiches. There are 2 rectangles of the fabric with the right side facing the other right side. The small tubes are folded in half and open ends are sticking out out the sandwich. The handles are in the loops and in the sandwich. If you look closely, you can see the shape of the handles showing through the fabric.

 Here is a peek inside the sandwich. you can see the handles in there. I stitched around the sides and the top where the little straps are sticking out. I did not sew the bottom closed because then I flipped it right-side out. 

This is what I made, these 2 identical pieces. Each one looks the same from front and back. I wanted to use this fabric everywhere for this bag. The bottom of each piece is not sewn closed yet but that is OK. We will do that next. I stitched these 2 pieces to each other on the sides and the bottom and flipped them right-side out again.

Here is a peak inside. I connected the 2 pieces you saw and flipped it right-side out again. I did this so the fabric would be visible at the top of the bag. Doing this also made clean seams all around the bag.

This is a great little summer bag, I am loving the bright orange and yellow. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.