This project is a little splurge for myself - I used making myself a new bag as incentive for spring cleaning my house. No cleaning-like-a-madwoman, no new bag. Worked like a charm, I tell you. :)
Technically, this bag took three tries to construct. Trial one was only on paper when I poured over my Pinterest Board of Bags with a sketchpad, trying to design a super fun bag. I have lots of bags I'd love to make but I kept ending up saying to myself, "This is a great bag but I can't see myself using it in summer." My summer bag has to be something that can be chucked around at the park, thrown in the pool bag at the last minute, preferably hands-free for bike riding, etc. Everything I was sketching was too structured, too 'handbag/purse', not enough 'tote/catch-all'. Then the lightbulb went on - I have an old drawstring backpack that I love. It is exactly the kind of tote/catch-all/hands-free bag I need for summer. I'll save the more structured bag for during the school year when I'm off to work and bible study and less outdoorsy places.
I made this one quite a few years ago and used it all. the. time.
Until it started fraying, even.
It was cute enough to carry to church, but not so special that it couldn't lay on the grass at the park and the drawstring aspect is super super handy. So... my new summer bag was going to be a drawstring backpack. I even had the perfect cute grey and pink vintage dressmaker print fabric for it.
Trials 2 and 3 come because I tried to improve on my previous version and the changes ended up making it worse. My old bag was two layers of quilting cotton with homemade bias straps. I thought it would be better/fun to quilt this version so I did. However, that ends up making the bag far too stiff and hard to cinch the drawstring closed. Drawstring bags are better floppy and loose - lesson learned. Long story short, I ended up scrapping the first one I quilted and making a second one from just quilting cotton. Bummer, but not a tragedy as I had enough fabric and they are super quick to make.
One improvement I did like was using grommets for the bottom strap holder rather than fabric loops. Grommets are fun and the strap slides through easily. It does cut into the 'square' of the bag whereas the fabric loops are on the outside, but that doesn't seem to be a big drawback so far. (You could always make a tab for inserting into the side seam that would allow the grommet to be outside the main square of fabric. )
It has one interior pocket for a phone or keys.
Here are some pictures of the finished bag(s), some of the quilted version, some of the unquilted. The bags are the same other than the thickness/quilting. I have since cut up the quilted bag to reuse the interior pocket and straps but some of the pictures were nice so I thought I'd post them anyway. I'll make the remaining squares of quilted fabric into a zipper pouch at some point.
So... thats my summer bag. Its been very useful and fun to carry as a purse. Hands-free backpacks are definitely wonderful for summer and this one is way cuter than those freebie nylon sporty ones. I'll take pink dresses and sewing supplies any day!
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