Sohpia Bag continued

And so we continue with our sewing of the Sophia Bag. I think if I recall, I was on step 4.

Step 4 (continued): Applying the interfacing

Measure 3/4 inch around the edge of the timtex.

Cut along the 3/4 inch lines we just marked.

Here we can see it all cut out.

Now we lay the timtex on the bottom panel and center it.

Place the fusible fleece we cut for the bottom panel on top of the timtex and line it up with the bottom panel. This will create a little sandwich with the timtex caught in the middle. Now we fuse it so that it all stays together.

And here we have our fused sandwich for the bottom panel. I plan on adding feet to the bottom of the bag, but I’m going to wait until after the rest of the bag is sewn because I was told that was a bit easier. Or at least the exterior of the bag (not the whole bag).

Step 5: Make the handles

Start by folding the handles in half. We’ll iron this to make a crease.

Doing the ironing for the crease . . .

Then we open up our handle and fold the sides in towards the crease and iron once again. Then we’ll fold those two sides back together along the original center crease and press again.

We’ll also give a good pinning to make sure everything stays aligned.

Finally, we sew very close to the edge to make our handles. I like to sew along the open side first and then the folded side. I used my edge stitching foot which worked nicely although I don’t know how necessary it was

Step 6: Attach the handles

Now it’s time to attach the handles.

First we iron a crease down the center of our main panel. We measure off 2.5 inches from that crease on the bottom and 8 inches up. I had a picture of my markings, but they’re so small it’s hard to see. So, never mind that.

Then we pin our handles so that they lie on the outside of the 2.5 inch marks. And now we sew. I started out using the edge foot as before, but it turned out to actually be easier to use the normal presser foot. I stayed on the lines of the original stitching pretty well, I think. And of course we repeat this for the other panel. The picture of this is at the top of the post but I’ll put it here again cuz it’s a good one 🙂

Step 7: Attach binding

Next we need to attach the binding we made before.

First we pin the binding to the outside of one of the main panels. Notice that we pin the handle down so it doesn’t get caught while we are sewing.

And here we have sewn the binding. We sewed it a little outside of the original stitching on the binding. When we sew the seam we’ll sew inside of both so we don’t see those stitches.

And attach the binding to the bottom. Some people chose not to do this as it doesn’t really add much to the look of the bag and adds some bulk which can be a pain when sewing. But I wanted to sew this all the way through the first time. So we added it. We’ll be adding the feet in a couple steps.

Step 8: Top panels & zipper

This is only picture I have of this step right now, pinning the top panels together so that they can be pasted.

To be continued . . .

Sadly right now, this is at a stand still. The needle plate on my machine is in millimeters which makes it harder than necessary to do the 1/2 inch seam allowances this pattern calls for. I have a new needle plate coming in which I ordered last week. They said it should be in in about a week so hopefully soon and then I can resume sewing. All in all though, I think it’s coming along nicely. Stay tuned 🙂