Vinyl fronted project bags

Firstly, I'm going to wish my mum a very Happy Birthday, I'll share what I gave her on the blog tomorrow, she might not have opened it yet :)  and now back to #Scrapbagsampler pattern 1, Sue has been incredibly busy and today we're going to share her project bag tutorial.  I make these in a very similar way but always with silver or gold sparkle vinyl.  They are great for sewing projects, carrying things in handbags and I especially like mine when I'm travelling, I can fit my kindle and sleep eye mask in.
Over to Sue :- 

Here is a tutorial on my project bags and there are two versions with a small difference, one is made with one fabric for the backing and the other uses left over blocks and a border.
Let's start with the bag made from a whole piece of fabric. If like me, you are a visual leaner, I have based my bag on Jenn Crafts Youtube tutorial that you can view here.

Requirements for 12” bag :-

Fat quarter of fabric for interior cut into:

12” square

2” x 12.5” strip – press in half to make a 1” wide strip

4” x 12.5” strip – press in half and then fold the sides into the centre and press again to make a 1” wide strip

12” square of firm interfacing, I used a very sturdy peltex which has glue on both sides

14” square of backing fabric

12.5” x 11” piece of vinyl – I used By Annie’s. You need a robust vinyl. 

14” zip

4” piece of ribbon (optional)

Thread to match both the backing and interior fabric

Parchment paper or Teflon sheet (essential)

Zipper foot

Walking foot

Vinyl front

This is the same for both bags in every aspect apart from dimensions. Tip If you have a directional fabric, double check the pattern is the right way up before stitching the zipper down.

1. Using your zipper foot and with zipper pull on the left, pin and sew the 2” x 12.5” strip to the zipper with the folded edge towards the zipper. Start with the zipper pull half way open and then as you approach the zipper pull, move it back to the top. 

(Pippa tip here, I use a glue pen/glue stick and glue my strip to the zipper tape, that way you don't need to pin it and as your aren't stopping to take the pins out I get a neater straighter stitch)

2. Take the 4” x 15” strip and insert the vinyl into the fold. You will enclose the edge of the vinyl. Stitch 1/8” away from the edge closest to the vinyl. If you are using a zipper foot the foot won’t be touching the vinyl, so don’t panic.

3. With the zip pull still on the left, pin the strip at the top of the vinyl to the zip and line up with the first strip (I glue it) . Start sewing from the right with the zipper on the left. Leave the zipper closed for the first half and then open up to allow you to stitch to the end. 

4. Sew a basting stitch across both ends of the zip. You don’t want to have to try and get the zipper pull back on the zip.  I have done this so many times; you’d think I’d have learnt by now.

5. Trim this unit to 12” square.

Putting the fabrics together

1. Take the 12” squares of interior fabric and interfacing and your sheet of parchment. 

Lay the parchment on your ironing board, then your interfacing and then matching up the edges, place your fabric on top and I use steam to adhere the interfacing to the fabric. Using the parchment means the interfacing doesn’t stick to your ironing board.

2. Fold your piece of ribbon in half and place 3.5” down from the top edge of your interior fabric and interfacing and baste in place. 

3. Take your backing fabric and draw a line 1” away from all four sides on the wrong side of the fabric. 

4. Put the backing fabric on your ironing board and centre the interior fabric/interfacing sandwich using your guidelines. Press in place. 

Putting the bag together

1. On your cutting mat. Place your vinyl front unit on top of your fabric sandwich matching up the edges. Trim the vinyl if necessary.

2. Starting on the right hand side with the vinyl front facing you, fold the excess fabric in half and then fold again to encase the vinyl. Hold in place with binding clips. 

3. To make the mitred corner, fold the bottom fabric corner into the side of the bag. Watch the video at 2.25 min for a visual aid. Then fold the bottom edge of the backing fabric in half and then fold again to encase the vinyl. Secure with lots of binding clips.

4. Repeat until all four sides are prepped. Take your time as it is worth redoing corners to make sure it’s looking good.

5. Do you need to change your thread colour to match the binding? Change to your walking foot. It’s time to stitch the binding down. Take it slow and stitch 1/8” away from the edge of the binding. When you get to the corner, I stitch a couple of stitches into the corner and then reverse. Turn and stitch the next side and repeat until you have all four sides stitched down.

Well done, you’re now finished. 

Here are the instructions for the Scrap Bag Sampler size, 

To change the size of the bag, you just need to remember that the backing is 2” wider and longer than the interior and vinyl. I have made this bag 16” square.

Requirements for 16” bag

16” square fabric for interior

2” x 16.5” strip – press in half to make a 1” wide strip

4” x 16.5” strip – press in half and then fold the sides into the centre and press again to make a 1” wide strip

Blocks and border fabric for the backing. 

16” square of iron on Bosal which has glue on both sides

16.5” x 15” of vinyl – I used By Annie’s You need a robust vinyl. 

18” zip

4” piece of ribbon (optional)

Thread to match both the backing and interior fabric

Parchment paper or Teflon sheet (essential)

Zipper foot

Walking foot

Vinyl front

See instructions for 12” bag just use the 16.5" strips and vinyl

Making the backing

Now you need to make a piece of fabric for the back which measures 18” square. I pieced together four blocks to make a 12.5” square and then added 3.5” mitred borders. If you’d like to mitre the corners, you need to cut 3.5” strips at least 17” long.

To mitre the border, pin your borders to the top and bottom of your 12.5” block.  Mark the border fabric ¼” in from top and sides of the 12.5” block. Stitch from one dot to another with a ¼” seam, back stitch at the beginning and end and trim your threads. Press border away from the centre.

Then add your borders to the two sides and make sure that you don’t stitch into the previously added borders. Press border away from the centre.

Refer to my photos and stitch one corner at a time. With your work, right side up, fold the top fabric down and draw a 45 degree line from the previously marked dots out to the underneath border.

Now match the edges of both borders and pin in place making sure there’s no excess fabric. Stitch the seam from the dot outwards. Press open and make sure you’re happy with the result. If you’re happy with the corner, press the seam open and trim the excess fabric.

Repeat for all four corners.

Putting the fabrics together

See instructions for 12” bag

Then quilt as desired. I kept it very simple as the quilting will be seen on the interior.

Putting the bag together See instructions for 12” bag.

Thanks again Sue for a great tutorial, I'm frantically trying to get my bag finished for Friday's final bag pattern (definitely check back, it's a great pattern) but my kid's are home from school for I don't know how long and I'm sure there's lots of adjustments to be made with *homeschooling* let's hope I get some sewing time in this week.

Check out the #scrapbagsampler to see the lovely tete a tete blocks popping up :)