Bags 9 - William Morris–Strawberry Thief Bag

I have loved this fabric for years and was lucky enough to come by a fent piece.  It is called the ‘Strawberry Thief’ by William Morris and is now sold in many sizes of pattern and a variety of colours.

Liz and I were going to the Chelsea Flower Show on a big treat to ourselves and I needed a bag for my water bottle and stuff of life that we cart around, just in case.

The basic shape was from the bucket bag in Lisa Lam’s ‘The Bag Making Bible’.  The rest is pure nerdi-ness.  I only had 3 repeats of the pattern to play with so accurate cutting was essential and pattern matching had to be as near to perfect as I could manage.

I sewed the bucket shape first and pinned it 3 times before I got the pattern to match down the sides and on the bottom.  The corners of the bag were then shaped by sewing across the pointed, squashed/opened corners.

Bottom.

I made a liner from curtain liner, for stiffness and inserted it into the bag.

At the same time I added a bottle holder and a pocket.

I then constructed the zip section.  This keeps the zip from the top of the bag for extra security and makes in neater.

First attach the zip to the flaps and then add both to the bag sides.  Then add the whole thing to the top of the bag, whilst inserting the ends of the handles.  This involved MANY pins.

NOTICE THE PATTERN MATCHING AROUND THE ZIP, YEAH!!

The handles are normal bag handles, 10cm wide fabric strip, folded and sewn.  These are sewn three times across to secure them into the body of the bag.

Then I tried twice to insert hemp rope into the handle to make it strong.  I had to resort to nylon rope as it was thinner and easier to sew.  Even with a zipper foot I could not get the needle near enough to the edge with the thicker hemp rope.  But it is simply the normal handle folded in half, rope applied down the length and then the halves seamed together.

I was previously going to apply the handles to the outside.  But the pattern had two flowers in the same place and I preferred the flowers.

Another picture of the bag as I am so darned chuffed with it.

The rope came out of the handles during our trip and had to be pushed back in.  They have now been stitched into place.  It performed well and is now my Summer 2018 bag.