Bag into camera bag: camera insert not-quite-orial

For Christmas, my mom got me this super cool bag (from Boden, sadly sold out now):

It’s quite a bit bigger than the purses I usually carry (I’m a smallish purse person, I don’t tend to carry my whole life in my purse – that’s in my work bag…), but looking inside I realised that it was a perfect size to carry all my purse stuff plus my camera (a DSLR)! I have a couple great camera bags (including one that looks like a purse, which I love, from here), but they hold all my myriad accessories and lenses as well as the camera, so they’re big and heavy and not necessarily what I want to bring on a casual trip to visit friends. So I determined that I would make a small foam insert for this bag to hold just my camera with one lens attached. After some googling, thinking, and yes, sewing, I had this:

A safe little cozy for my camera, leaving room for my water bottle on the side. I did document how I put the insert together, but what follows is not quite a tutorial – it’s less “you should do this” than “I did this”, so I’ve coined the term “how-I-did-it-orial” for it. Yeah, that’ll catch on, right? Anyway, see how-I-did-it after the jump…

Extreme last-minute gift making

Well, after a rather long hiatus from my Christmas crafting (justified by my early completion of my first three gifts), I rushed out a couple more things the night before I gifted them:

For a friend at work, this is a purse organizer and a small zipper pouch. She always wants to change her purses to match her outfits, but complains about what a pain it is to transfer all her purse contents all the time, so I thought this might help. It’s basically a strip of pockets that she can fill with purse stuff, roll up and stick in one purse, then pull it out and move it to another purse easily. To make it, I cut two 10 by 20 inch pieces of fabric, interfaced them both with midweight interfacing, sewed them wrong sides together, turned, pressed, and edgestitched all the way around. Then I sewed a line across 4 inches from the bottom of the long edge, folded along that line, and sewed lines from top to bottom in somewhat random intervals to form the pockets (I think there are 6 pockets ranging in width from 1 to 5 inches). The zipper pouch is from this tutorial. It took me a minute (or several) to wrap my head around how it would all come out finished on the inside and such, but it worked great and I may make one for myself sometime too!

I also made a quick circle scarf for the same friend:

This has got to be the easiest gift of all time to make. I bought a third of a yard of jersey from the bulk bin at my local fabric shop. I trimmed off the selvages, then used a ruler and rotary cutter to make the long edges nice and straight, and sewed the short ends together. Done. So if it happens to be Christmas Eve and you’re one gift short, might I suggest a jersey circle scarf? I think it took me longer to buy the fabric than to make the scarf, seriously.

Finally, I made one more thing for my mom that I’ve posted over at the Crafty Christmas Club.

Woo-hoo, Christmas Crafting complete! So to all those who celebrate it, have a Merry Christmas. May it be filled with family, friends, food, and plenty of crafty gifts too!

Messenger Bag Tutorial

Well, the gift-giving season is upon us, and my holiday present-making is beginning… a bit later than most other people’s, I imagine! So if there are any more craft procrastinators out there, here’s something for you – I thought I’d share this little messenger bag I came up with a while ago:

About a year ago, when I started riding my bike around town to dinner and pubs and whatnot, I discovered that there was a hole in my bag wardrobe, and what I really wanted was a purse-sized messenger bag. Something that would hold my wallet, phone, water bottle, and a light sweater, a bag that I could wear across my body on the bike and then the strap could be shortened up to a shoulder bag length to make it more manageable in crowded places. Of course, I wanted to make it. But when I went hunting for a tutorial online, I didn’t find exactly what I wanted. So I sat down with some graph paper and sketched out a sort of pattern/plan, and just went for it. (Click on the sketches to enlarge.)

  

Inspired by my Timbuk2 messenger bags (which I love, but they’re giant), I created a three-panel front with a pocket. There is also an interior zipper pocket as well as a set of patch pockets on the inside front. There is no closure on the front flap, I’ve found I haven’t needed anything and it stays closed on its own, but velcro could easily be added. Here’s a better look:

 

I’ve made two of these bags for myself so far (one in browns and one in greys, have to have one to match any outfit!). I wanted to make one for a friend for Christmas, so I thought I’d use the opportunity to photograph all the steps and put together a tutorial, if for no other reason than my own personal future reference. The sketched pattern is great, but I needed to document a sensible order of construction if I’m going to keep making these! I think this bag would make a great gift (obviously, since I’m giving this one to someone), or you could sew selfish and use your holiday break to make one for yourself!

I’ve used quilting cotton for all my bags (this one is fabric from the Avalon line by Jay-Cyn Designs for Birch Fabrics, aka Fabricworm (love that store!), but you could use a heavier weight canvas or something as well and not need interfacing. I think it’s a great showcase for your favorite fabric – large or small scale print (I sort of fussy cut this one to get the birds in good places), and one, two or three fabrics (the contrast pockets are fun but not at all necessary).

The finished bag measures 8 inches tall by 11 inches wide by 3 inches deep. It can probably be enlarged by adding, say, 10% to every measurement except the strap (which wouldn’t be practical any wider than 2 inches). But I like the small size – it’s a purse for your bike! Here are some pictures for scale:

 

The tutorial can be found after the jump. I’ve also made a pdf file of the tutorial to download (here), if you’d like to save it to your computer. Disclaimer: I am by no means a professional or even moderately skilled bag maker. I’ve made a bunch of bags from other people’s tutorials and used a lot of those techniques to construct this bag. If you’ve ever made bags before, most of the steps will be familiar to you. If you have questions or something is confusing, let me know, or check out other bag tutorials for  a different look at the same step. I’ve also always thought that patterns and tutorials are springboards for customization, so make this bag your own! That is why we sew, after all, right?