Friday 29 August 2008

Tutorial for 'The Blossie Bag'

Cut a rectangle of medium weight fusible Pellon, approximately 20"x13" (I used Vilene H640). Choose coordinating fabrics, as many or few as you like, & cut strips 20" long. The width of the strips for my bag were cut 3.5" (stripe), 2.5" (blue), 1.25" (orange), 1" (yellow), 2" (green) and 4" (floral). There are lots of ideas for combinations on my previous postLay the base fabric, right side up, on the fusible side of the Pellon. Press.  Be careful to press the fabric only, not the Pellon. Pin the second strip to the base strip, right sides together. Stitch a 0.25" seam. Use a walking foot if you have one, as this prevents the uppermost strip from stretching as you sew. Carefully press the second strip back against the Pellon. This is a sort of quilt-as-you-go technique, and means you don't have to quilt the top of the bag later. Continue adding strips in this manner until you get to the pom-pom trim. How to add a pompom trim with a header which needs to be hidden: Pin the pom-pom trim to the top of the previous strip. Stitch the trim to the bag. Pin the final strip of fabric to the bag, with the pom-poms sandwiched beneath. Stitch the final strip to the bag, getting as close as you can to the pom-poms as your walking foot will allow. This stitching is awkward, and can be a bit rough. It is really only stay-stitching. Flip the entire bag over, and now stitch on or inside a previous stitching line, as close as you can to the pom-poms. A zipper foot at this point may help. Now press the final strip back against the Pellon & with a bit of luck, you will have a lovely row of pom-poms sticking out from the seam nicely! 
Add any extra trims you'd like at this stage by simply stitching them on the bag. Pom-pom trims with a decorative header can be added at this point rather than inserted in the seam as previously described. When all strips have been sewn to the Pellon & all trims attached, cut the rectangle back to measure approximately 18"x11.5". You should now have something resembling the photo below:
With right sides together, match the two 11.5" sides of the rectangle. Stitch this side seam and across the bottom of the bag with 0.25" seams. Fold the side of your bag against the centre bottom seam to form a triangle. Stitch across the corner approximately 0.75" from the tip. Repeat for the other corner. Trim excess from corners and turn bag right side out.Prepare two handles 15" long as described in this tutorial. Stitch them 1.25" either side of the centre top of the bag.Prepare the bag lining as for the outer bag, leaving a gap in one seam for turning. Keeping the outer bag right side out, place it inside the lining with right sides together. Matching side seam, pin the outer bag & lining together around the top & stitch with 0.25" seam.Turn the bag right side out through the opening in the lining. Top stitch around the bag top & slip stitch the opening in the lining closed.There ends the longest tutorial in history - I hope you've made it! I actually made my bag with pockets in the lining, but I think pockets will have to wait for another tutorial - it's late & believe me, I need my beauty sleep! Please ask questions if you don't understand my instructions.
If you are making this as a bible bag, it will fit a student's bible approximately 15cm wide x 22cm long x 4.5cm deep, with some extra room for pens, lip gloss, iPod, lollies, prayer notes (?) etc. 
Hope to be back with a pocket tutorial soon. Happy weekend, Bloom.
EDIT: Pocket tutorial available here.

31 comments:

  1. What a wonderful detailed tutorial! You are so generous to share this - I shall do one up for my 4 sisters. It looks easy enough. Thank you, Bloom.

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  2. Wow, thank you for this tutriol and for the time you had been use to do it...

    Take care!

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  3. Awesome tutorial. So generous of you to take the time to share. Thanks

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  4. Thanks for sharing I am going to try this one.
    Hugs Mary.

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  5. Gorgeous bag and fantastic tutorial...

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  6. Love the bag and also your Bookweek post.

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  7. Thanks for taking the time to share your bag with us. great bag that can be done so many ways!

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  8. Just gorgeous Ros, I'll be tagging this tutorial for future reference.
    Love the colours.

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  9. Thanks for this great tutorial! It is a practical bag, a perfect gift! Hope you slept fine, you deserved it!

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  10. Thank you so much. This is a very exact tutorial, you can´t get it wrong which is great.

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  11. Thanks for this Bloom, will add it to my to do list!! The fabrics you have used are gorgeous!! Cathyxx

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  12. Thanks for that...it's a great tutorial.

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  13. Great tutorial and a grrrreat bag, makes me smile :) - Thank you for this

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  14. Thanks I like your blog bloom!!

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  16. Hi there!

    i have link ur tutorial in http://diybaglover.blogspot.com/.

    Hope u dont mind :)

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  17. Great tutorial and adorable bag!

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  18. Thanks so much for this well written tutorial. I have included it on my blog www.creative-christmas.blogspot. com for Day 3 of our Purse week.

    Lesli

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  19. Wonderful tutorial and just what I need at this time! Thank you very much!!

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  20. I will definitely try! It's wonderful!

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  21. Hi , YOUR WORK IS BEAUTIFUL !
    Thanks,
    W.

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  22. Thanks for posting such a clear and versatile tutorial. My church is having a "purse auction" next month and I wanted to incorporate some punchneedle into a purse/bag of some sort as an offering for the event. This will work perfectly! Best instructions I've run across thus far. :)

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  23. How cute! I love the pom pom's! I'd like to share a link to this tutorial on sewwhattoday.blogspot.com on April 28!

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  24. I will definitely make this one! Thanks!!

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  25. wonderfull! There's one thing I don't understand: folding a triangle. Can you help me?

    Elise from the Netherlands

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  27. love the bright color fabrics on bag

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  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  29. Made this cute bag up yesterday & it was so easy to follow the directions. It is a little smaller than I expected. We use centimetres not inches so had to sort that out (could be why it's smaller as well - my mistake in calculating inches to centimetres!) I have made two other larger totes using the same idea with the stripes of fabric with embellishments. They look great too!

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  30. Love your work, I'm new to sewing just want to make sure that the measurements are inches right ? If not can you add them to your patterns.
    Thank you

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