Burdastyle Sewing Handbook: Bag

My poor handbag is falling to pieces and I can't find anything I like in the stores at the moment so thought I'd have a go at making a bag. This is the pattern from the Burdastyle handbook, its the main version of the bag with a couple of changes like inside pockets and different straps.

I had fabric leftover from my rose trench coat so first made an underlined pencil skirt....... which bagged out and looked terrible so I unpicked it and remade it as a lined pencil skirt....which fitted badly enough I didn't even hem it. So it was oddly satisfying chopping it up for this bag! I reused the original skirt lining too as the bag lining.

The straps were originally sleeve bands for the trench coat which I left off so it was nice to use them for the straps since I'd already done bound buttonholes in them. The silver buttons are out of my stash.

 

Because I was using a thinish cotton sateen for the bag I interfaced it and also used fusible fleece on the lining to give it a bit of thickness and strength. Haven't used fusible fleece before but it went on really easily and adds a bit of heft to the bag without making it too stiff.

 

I added a couple of open pockets to the inside for my iphone and a magnetic closure. It would have been nice to add a zipper to the bag and a inside zippered pocket too but it hurt my head too much thinking about it so went the easy way! Surprisingly Spotlight had a decent range of bag making notions, its where I got the d-rings and the magnetic closure from.

 

I'm still a sucker for a nice leather handbag, but this cost next to nothing (about $10 all up for the fusible fleece and the notions) and its a lot nicer than what I've been using. I do think its too deep though and not wide enough, I didn't gather the top of it as much as the pattern says because I wouldn't have been able to fit my wallet in. Next version will be wider by about 2" and lower by about 2" with a padded ipad pocket inside and there will be a next one, I really enjoyed making this!