Well friends, I did it. With the help of Julia/Red Rainboots Handmade and the SewTogether Bag Sewalong, I made the infamous SewTogether Bag, a pattern by Michelle/SewDemented. I'd long been shy of it - all those zippers, the very unique shape, those curved handles - so much to be intimidated by. And yes, it was challenging, but oh so doable, especially with Julia holding my hand with her awesome videos of every step. I'm glad I took the plunge.
As planned, I used Lee Heinrich's Perfect Geese template to make my own bag front. And I veered off ever so slightly from my original fabric pull after I made an error in cutting. So my bag's lining became a different Carolyn Friedlander low-volume print (5th goose from the left on the front, rather than the 3rd).
All my zips were from Zipit Zippers - Mustard Yellow for the interior pockets and Slate Gray for the exterior. Zipit even has a special bundle where you can mix and match your zips for the SewTogether Bag - how handy is that? Anyway, I want to mention that the step pictured below was one I was afraid of but I shouldn't have been. It went together so nicely.
The moment my bag took on 3D status was an exciting one. Adding those side panels was a little finicky (IE. my seam ripper came out briefly), but it was fun to finally see a construction technique I'd been wondering about. Oh, and I took a moment to add in one of my leather labels!
It looks like I totally missed taking any photos of the attaching the lining to the exterior. That's probably because that was the trickiest step of all. It was just cumbersome, and I ended up switching to a bigger needle, which really helped. I machine-stitched the end bindings on, and then finished them by hand, just because I wasn't confident I could get nice straight machine stitches with those bulky edges.
From there, it was just that main exterior zipper and binding, which was more of a breeze than I'd expected. I did completely machine-stitch those bindings, though, because with the zipper totally open, it wasn't difficult to finish them off neatly.
Somewhere around the middle of constructing the bag, I was mulling over how much less glitzy my bag was going to be than the majority of those I've seen over the years. And it came to me that I could add one little detail that would put it over the top, for me at least.
And that was leather zipper tabs. The pattern calls for little fabric pocket-like tabs, which are perfectly fine of course. But why, when you have some short scraps of leather on hand? I cut mine 1" x 5", marked the center at 2.5" on the back with my hera marker, and double-stitched along that line at the base of the bag on each end. Then I tucked in the zipper end(s) with a bit of glue, and finger-pressed together for a few seconds before I stitched the end together. GO SLOW if you try this. It's thick, as you can imagine, but obviously worked just fine. I triple-stitched, and it feels good and secure.
Not sure why the photo below makes it look like there's a loose thread, because there isn't, but oh well. I'm super happy that I thought of trying this AND that it worked so well. I love the look!
Soooo..... SewTogether Bag success! I added a little leather cord zipper pull to the main zipper, and it's a wrap. Now to decide what to put in it!
