craftgrrl | this is the story of a frustrated girl who wanted to sew a bag.

So today, I present to all of you a story and some photos of my bag-making experience. I've made a couple of hand-bags (ghetto-sewn, since no one ever taught me how to use the machine, etc.) and some drawstring purses, but here I attempted to make something bigger that would hold more items, that I could use perhaps on a semi-daily basis, etc.

The robot purse, created by

wasted_sympathy, was too cute of an opportunity to pass up, and luckily, there was a step-by-step tutorial posted to go with it. It looked simple enough -- cut out some rectangular pieces, sew them together, add a zipper and buttons -- ta-da!

However, the outcome of my first robot purse attempt did not go so well. The bag is usable, but just looks.. lol, really funky.

first things first -- i had to buy fabric..

I went to Hancock's fabric store since, if I took a different freeway route home, it would be along the way. I picked up the beautiful fabrics photographed above for about $5 or so (one yard of each). I also bought black buttons and a black zipper. I have never done buttons of zippers before. Total cost came out around $10 for everything (because I also bought grey fleece for a separate, future project). Not bad.

First, I started cutting out the pieces. My scissors were dull, dull, dull. I had to take a break to bring my sister to her middle school orientation. Afterwards, we went to Wal-mart so I could pick up a couple extra things I needed -- black thread (fifty cents), a pair of nice, sharp scissors ($2), and some snacks lol. Weeee.. the sharp scissors worked a million times better.

So, following the tutorial, I cut out pieces, then brought down my sewing machine so I could start putting it together. The first sewing step involved sewing fabric to the lining itself (for the front pockets). That went well. Then, I had to add buttonholes. Great. I had no idea how to use my button-hole maker on the sewing machine, even after reading the manual, and it looks like I might be missing a piece or something. I don't know. So, I ghetto-sewed it with the machine instead..

I continued sewing on pieces. So far, so good. The sewing looked amateur, but still okay for me. The front was looking good. I added pockets and buttons, and I was happy.

Then, this is where all goes wrong. I must have not been thinking or something, or perhaps it's because I had been sewing outside fabric to lining, that I sewed the "all-around piece" (sides&bottom) to the lining, too. I realized then I wasn't supposed to do that -- instead, I was supposed to sew all the outside pieces together to form a bag shape, then sew the lining together and form a bag shape, then stick the lining in. Well, too late now. I had already begun sewing pieces to the lining by mistake, and was too tired to rip out seams. So, I just had to wing it for the rest of the bag since I had messed up, hah.

Because of that, lining and fabric is showing where it shouldn't, like in the seams. I had fabric bunching up, maybe due to bad measurements, and I had to keep sewing over places. I can't even begin to name all the things that went wrong with my sewing. And as if the bag didn't look ghetto already, the inside pocket I made ended up being off-center. lol.

I sewed the straps together, then turned them inside out. They looked a bit funky. what I should have done was sewn them with the right sides out, and just folded in the edges. I wanted to add the zipper to the top too, so I did that. I turned the bag inside out, attached a zipper to some fabric and then sewed it onto the top. I flipped the bag inside-in, and then realized -- well shit, I forgot to pull out the straps -- so now the straps were on the inside of the bag. -_- I was pissed and upset by then, so I ripped out the top piece with the zipper and cut it up and made a huge mess of thread in the living room. I decided not to touch the bag anymore after that. Overall, it is only okay, and looks fine from far far far away, but upclose you can see what a mess it turned out to be.

;_;!

This morning though, I decided to re-attempt the bag. I didn't have anymore buttons or zippers, so I would have to make adjustments. I drew out a pattern on paper and cut out some pieces. Instead of having two button-flap pockets on the front, I would just have one big pocket that didn't close. And on the inside, I would also add one big pocket. Halfway through cutting out pieces, I thought it'd be fun if I attempted a button again, so I then decided the inside would have a mini-pocket with a button, and then a regular non-closing pocket to its side. I did a scavenger hunt in my room for some fabric, and found some left over from a drawstring purse I made for my boyfriend's sister. There was just enough of it to make another purse.

This time, I did everything correctly. I cut the pieces the right sizes, sewed the outside pieces separately from the lining, and the fabric didn't bunch up anywhere except for once on the straps (but it's barely noticable). The completed bag looks tons better than the original one I made (although I wish my nice bag had been done in the pink & black fabrics). The only other problem with this one is that it is slightly slanted at the top. I think that happened when I was folding and sewing the raw edges in.