Lunchbag tutorial

[banthetubetop.livejournal.com]

Ok, so I am terrible at tutorials, so here is my best attempt to explain how to make a lunchbag, like the ones in my post from last night.


First of all, it's pretty much based off of this sort of bag, so if that tutorial makes sense to you then you should be able to make a lunchbag.

To make mine, I cut everything 22.5 x 11.5 (this made a bag that was 7" wide, 9" tall and 3.5" deep)
I cut 1 main fabric, 1 lining fabric, 1 fusible interfacing, 1 batting, and 1 stitchwitchery fusible stuff.

Iron the interfacing to the wrong side of the main fabric, and use the stitchwitchery to iron the batting to the wrong side of the lining fabric (my batting started to melt a little when I did this part, so just be careful)

Fold both pieces in half (it should be roughly square when folded in half) and sew both sides of the main fabric (1/2" seam allowance).

Sew one whole side of the lining, and on the other side leave a hole in the middle, but sew the bottom 3" and the top 3".

The next step is what makes the bag have a bottom, instead of being flat. Stick your hand inside the (inside-out) bag and kind of make the corner of the bag into a triangle. Like this:
except yours won't have a seam on the bottom.

Sew across the triangle. Your seam should be 3.5" long, Like this:


Repeat on the other side, and also for the lining. You can trim off the triangles once you've sewn the seam. It will look like this:
, except without the seam on the bottom.

Turn the main part of the bag right-side-out and put it inside the lining (so they're right-sides-together). Pin so all the seams are lined up and stitch around the top. Use the hole you left in the side of the lining to pull the bag right-side out. Once you've stitched up the hole in the lining, fix it all up so the lining is inside, and iron all the sides so it folds up like a lunch bag. Put some velcro in there if you want.

This was a terrible explanation, but if I ever make another I'll take some pictures along the way and post a real tutorial.

The result of this is a lunchbag that's sort of insulated (I keep mine in the fridge at work, so it doesn't really need to be completely insulated) and not waterproof or anything--if I have soup in there that leaks, it'll leak right out of the lunchbag and onto everything else in the fridge. So really all it accomplishes is being prettier and less wasteful than brown paper lunch bags.