Hello Crafterhours followers! We are Jessica and Corinnea of Created Blissfully and we are busy making ALL THE THINGS… We have a slight obsession with Oliver and S, Hey June and most recently the Nessie top and BIMMA sweater patterns. Today we want to share one of our very own favorite patterns, the Circle Bottom Bag. The pattern has three sizes with pattern pieces included. This pattern is so fun and quick to make. We actually did most of them in one afternoon.
We enjoy making things for each other through out the year but at Christmas it becomes even a bit more special. We truly love to give and receive handmade items. Our favorite way to “wrap” our gifts? Handmade bags of course! It’s a great use of your smaller cuts of fabric and even adds a special touch to store bought gifts. For the kids, it immediately gives them a place to put their new toys. The quickest sew is to use novelty prints or a basic print.
The basic bags are fun and quick, but sometimes a little personal touch is called for. There are no limits. From labeling the contents, to adding monograms, favorite animals or holiday themes, etc… We love to do appliqué and embroidery.
While we were making these, we decided to hack the pattern and add some leather.
Oh goodness, doesn’t leather always make things better? This could also be done with a faux leather if you would prefer. We simply added the leather on top of the fabric we chose for the body of the bag. Since leather does not ravel, we left the edge raw and used a leather needle with a longer stitch length to put the pieces together. Once that was done, we assembled the bag in the same way as you would normally. Don’t use pins to keep your leather in place, the holes will be permanent. We found using wonder clips to be very helpful.
On the larger bag we changed it up even a bit more by adding an extra inch and a half to the height of the bag and doing a single drawstring out of one inch twill tape. We moved the drawstring opening to the front of the bag and added a grommet there, and a tab and grommet at the bottom for more of a rugged/backpack look. We were going for a bit more masculine, but we never really let the guys touch it. Its the perfect purse or gym bag and is very comfortable worn cross body.
Lastly, because we had nothing else going on except one of us moving cross country, Mom had the crazy idea to bust out one more selvage edge version. What quilter/crafter wouldn’t love to find this under the tree?
We hope our bags inspire you to sew something!
Awesome bags ladies! The leather is really cool!
Love the bags. Great ideas for gifts and putting gifts in!
Actually above comment was posted by Norma!