Foldable bag

This post also has a dutch version which you can read here.

After seeing several beautiful projects based on the patterns from the book Zo Geknipt 2, I could not resist and bought the book (I am weak like that). I get very motivated to sew by sew alongs and the Zo geknipt 2 Sewalong is the most special sew along I have seen yet. It is not a link up or facebook page, it is a blog a true blog. Every month two projects are tackled and sewing along means that you make your own blog post on the blog about the projects you sewed.

January is the month of a foldable shopping bag and reflectors to put on a child's bag, to make them visible in the dark. I am trying to reduce my fabric stash so a foldable bag it is. I do not own any reflective fabric. A few foldable bag were already sewn and one of the first sewist's advised to make the triangle (that keeps the bag folded) a bit bigger. Keeping this problem in mind, I choose a different solution to avoid the bag  from falling apart. I added a kam snap to keep everything in place. Another thing in which I did not follow the guidelines was the fabric prescription. I used a cotton sateen from Michael Miller, where the pattern suggested two thin layers of cotton. The sateen is much stronger and heavier than simple cotton, it feels like canvas. I therefore forwent a full lining of the bag and as well as the iron on stabilizer. To give the bag a neat finish I did line the handles, but this lining stops a few centimeters below the handles.

For the triangle piece I chose a scrap piece of Birch fabric from my stash. This fabric was the trigger for re-starting my blog and is therefor special to me. Now I can often enjoy the fabric.

The neat finish of the bag requires to tightly roll the fabric, after sewing the handles, and stitch closely next to the rolled fabric. I thought I totally understood the instructions, rolled my fabric and started sewing. It turned out I was being a fool and folded both front and back of the bag together, but this is not necessary. The front and back are not yet connected and you can sew them separately. For me this meant that even though I rolled very neatly it was very hard to sew (no wonder because I had a double amount of fabric on my roll. It simply was impossible to sew on both the outside and the handle, one of the fabrics was always slipping away. It was the first time I actually screamed at my sewing machine, fortunately I was the only one home. After I finally succeeded to have both sides connected (it looked horrible), it was really hard to unroll the bag. I already decided that next time I would have to adjust the distance to the handle when the two piece separated and I saw the light.

After sewing the bag I first attached the snap on the small triangle (I had ironed on some stabilizer). Then I folded the bag. The last thing that I did differently from the books guideline was the folding. The book advices to fold the bag vertically four times, I chose to fold only three times because this gave the folded bag better dimension than if I would have folded it four times. I determined the place of the second snap, unfolded the bag, ironed on some stabilizer, and placed the second snap. I folded and unfolded the bag a few times and it is not hard to fold the bag in such a way that the snaps meet.