Vaskova's Birthday Bag

Project: make a bag for a friend's birthday
Goal: make it something I'd be proud to give as a gift

So a couple of weeks ago I saw this friend/colleague of mine walking through Central School with one of those plastic bags people in Russia love to use to carry things in. I don't particularly like these, so I offered to make said friend a bag. She seemed excited so I asked some questions, like, what colours and style. She offered up grey, and when pressed to give information about a preference for a colour for lining/accenting, she decided on dark blue. Then she said she'd like something like this, a bag we got in many colours from CUP when we were choosing new course books last year:

I searched the internet for some bag patterns and really thought I'd be able to use this one, but it wasn't big enough. I loved the idea of a "choose your own" adventure bag (quotes are the authors). So I decided that since this friend of mine (we'll call her K, even though the title of this post has her name in it so I don't know why I'm being coy with the information) had explicitly stated she liked the idea of the Cambridge tote I'd make something very similar for her.

Another thing I kept in mind while planning was that K is obsessed with the Union Jack. My first plan was to make an accurate outline of the Union Jack on the front of the bag but I'm not really that into it myself, so I instead came up with a more off-centre interpretation (represented above with the help of Microsoft Paint).

These are the fabrics I chose: a grey linen for the main body of the bag and the straps, and a pretty dark blue for the lining/stripes of the Union Jack.

The pictures don't really do the blue justice. Anyway, I cut one long panel from the grey for the bag, and from the blue from the lining, and then I cut two strips for the handles from the grey and eight strips from the blue for the Union-Jackesque stripes. I also wanted to add a bow because I really really like bows.

First I made the handles; I reinforced them with some of that fusible interfacing business. It was at this stage that I became superpleased with my choice of the grey fabric. I actually fell in love with it.

Then I added the first two stripes in the front of what would be the bag; in my early stages of planning this is where I thought I'd stop with the stripes but I'm glad I didn't because it is very Finnish-flag.

Next I added the diagonal stripes, which I did a very bad job of lining up but to be honest it was not one of my main priorities so I'm telling myself that if I had thought harder about it they would've turned out more aligned.

Since I had finished adding the stripes I then took my first ever stab at lining something. I am so happy with how it turned out, too. I think I'm going to line everything from now on. Amazing.

I stitched over the tops of the sides to cover the raw edges...

...and then stitched from the inside straight down the sides to create, in essence, a sack.

Using the Cambridge bag as a guide I pinched the two bottom corners into triangles and stitched horizontally across the base of the triangles, creating a quick and easy base for the bag (which you can see here from the inside).

And this is how it looked on the outside after I added the handles. Adding the handles took me about an hour and a half because Ethel kept tangling the bobbin thread; after much angry searching on the internet (and changing the needle) I discovered it was actually my fault, as well as the top thread's fault, but mainly mine because I had threaded the top thread wrong.

Pretty, right? I was tempted to leave it like this but I had become obsessed with the idea of a bow. So I used this YouTube tutorial and made this one (not the prettiest, I know, but I'm such a lazy cutter; one of my goals for my trip to America this summer is to get a decent cutting board and rotary cutter):

Then I stitched the bow to the bag at the point where the stripes all meet on what I decided would be the front and voila! the bag is finished!

I LOVE it. I really hope K loves it too. The stripes are fraying a lot but I don't really mind; we'll see if she does. Here are some more pictures of it:

front

back

I think it turned out really well. It's kind of like something a trendy, subtle Dallas Cowboys fan would carry. Are there any trendy, subtle Dallas Cowboy fans? Bitchy.