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Hopelessly Crooked

Many times in the past I've been happily sewing along and get to the end of my bag project, turn the bag right side out and notice a flap or strap that was previously straight is now hopelessly crooked.  How this happened might seem so basic to some of you, but I did this over and over before finally realizing they were getting out of whack when I attached my lining. 

So now I pin any flaps and straps down securely in place before attaching the lining. There are two things to remember if you do this:

1. Make sure the pins are far enough down so you don't accidentally run them over and break your needle .

2. Remove the pins before turning your bag or you will be poked, scratched, and/or gouged and there will be blood and possible cursing.  Because I sew almost daily I now remember to take them out, but if you think you might forget take your fabric pen and write yourself a note below where your opening for turning will be:

Shaping with the Iron

Often when I'm finished sewing something I go back and shape it up a bit with my iron.  This is especially helpful with the Box Wallet, which I'll use as the example:

1. Stuff the wallet with paper (plain grocery sacks cut into smaller pieces work great). 

2. Warm up iron

3. Firmly, but gently, press the edges against the hot iron for 5-10 seconds.  Do the top, bottom and sides one by one.

4. Then press the front of the flap and lay it face down to cool off and stiffen into it's new and improved shape!

 

Easy Double Straps

The pattern instructions for the City Tote are for the single strap style and someone recently pointed out that one of the photos I use in the listing shows it with double straps.  I don't want to add the additional instructions to the pattern because the file is already fairly large, so here are the instructions for making the 18" long double straps (0.75" wide). 

1. Cut two pieces of fabric 19" long (with the grain)  x 3" wide and two piece of iron-on interfacing just slightly smaller than your fabric pieces.  If you want straps a specific width just multiply your width x 4 and use that for your width measurement.

2. Fold your fabric piece in half lengthwise and press to make a crease down the center.

3. Open up fabric and press one side in toward the center crease. Repeat on other side.

4. Fold fabric piece in half again and pin or clip in place.

5. Topstitch around edges of fabric piece.  I usually topstich at 1/8" around both side edges and then topstitch another row up the center.

6. Pin or clip strap ends to your bag body.  They should be facing towards the bottom of the bag. 

If you aren't sure where you want them simply fold them up to get an idea of how the placement looks.

Stitch your straps in place. Then repeat this step on the other side. 

You're ready to attach the lining to your bag now!  Here's one extra tip to keep the straps straight while you sew:

Before placing the outside bag shell inside the lining shell, pin the straps down a few inches from the top of the bag.

Then sew the lining to your bag.  Before turning your bag right side out make sure to reach inside and remove the pins. 

Topstitching in Tight Places

Another question someone asked a while back was how to keep the topstitching neat on the Box Wallet.  For those of you with the pattern you'll know this is a tricky step and that as you come around the back side of the wallet you end up in a blind spot. 

I ran across this tip in a sewing magazine and it works great: place a piece of tape on your presser foot indicating where to line the fabric up to continue topstitching at the same length. 

Getting Rid of Bulk in Your Corners

One question a customer recently asked me how to get the corners just perfect on the Box Wallet. It might be impossible to get them perfectly flat but one thing that can help with any corner is to trim notches out of the interfacing.

Just cut a square out of each corner of your interfacing before you iron it to your fabric. You want it to extend beyond where your seam allowance would be to ease the bulk from the corner.

For a standard corner (i.e. NOT boxed) I generally use a 0.50" square since most of my seam allowances are right around 0.25".  For the Box Wallet you'll want to cut the interfacing away past where you would box it, so a 0.75"-1" square should help get those corners as flat as possible.

Sewing Great Darts

Darts are a nice way to give bags depth so I use them a lot.  Here is the method I've come up with to make sure they are the same size and match up well. 

1. Use a fabric pen or chalk to draw your darts. 

2. Stick a pin in one side of a dart and out the other coming out right in your dart line on the back side.  Then flatten it and pin in place for sewing.

3. After sewing both darts on one side compare them to each other. Are they the same size at the bottom?  Are they the same length at the top? If not go back and make adjustments until they are pretty much the same size.

4. After sewing all four darts on your two pieces make sure they all line up pretty nicely. Sometimes on one side the darts are off and lay outside the darts on the other bag side. If you need to make adjustments make sure you do it to both sides at this point. Adjusting just one dart now might leave you with a lopsided bag and it is hard to notice until you are finished with the bag and it's too late to go back! Just sew both darts on the side that needs adjusting a little bit bigger until they all line up. 

5. Align the two sides matching the darts closely but not perfectly--I find it works best if the top dart of the first dart set you will sew across is just slightly in front of the bottom dart. As you sew around to the dart the fabric gets thicker and the presser foot will roll the top dart right up on the lower dart.  If you line them up perfectly it seems like the top dart gets pushed off the lower dart and ends up slightly misaligned behind the lower dart when you are finished sewing.

 

Sewing Tips

As I sell more patterns I want to be able to be able to offer extra sewing tips, more detailed explanations of some steps for those new to sewing and some fun and easy pattern modifications.

This first tip is so simple but will help give you really nice results:

Use binder clips instead of pins when working with multiple layers of fabric and interfacing.

 

The clips hold the layers in place without bunching it up like pins and they are really easy to remove as you go along.  I find them really useful for making sure pockets stay lined up on the Business Card Wallet, Checkbook Wallet and for making purse straps. Binder clips can be found at any office supply store.   

Happy Sewing!