My Blossom Shoulder Bag - Part 3

Next, I made the exterior bag; following step 11.
The only thing thing I found a bit difficult was stitching the side panels to the main and bottom panels.
Because the exterior is reinforced with Peltex or Vilene S 520, it makes the pieces rather stiff and difficult to keep in place, especially when stitching the curves.
I pinned the panels together like shown in the drawing on p.122. This keeps them together well.
Then I made the flap. For the inside of the flap, I used lining fabric to give contrast.
I followed step 12, this is easy.
Some pictures:

After turning the flap inside out, I thought I ruined it; look at the crackled surface (this is because of the stiff interfacing) 

Some ironing did wonders.

I got a perfect result after edge stitching

I added purse feet to the bottom of the bag, to protect the fabric:

Then I made the lining for the bag in exactly the same way as the exterior. This was easy.

To attach the lining to the exterior I used another method.

Following step 14, I would have to turn the bag right side out through the opening. Remembering what happened to the flap, I thought it would be very difficult to iron the exterior of the bag afterwards; so I attached the lining to the exterior this way:

I turned my exterior bag right side out and folded the top edges inwards.

Then I placed the lining bag ,(WSO, wrong side out) with the top edges folded to the wrong side , in the exterior bag. I matched the top edges and clipped them together using my gettta grip clips..

and stitched all around the top.

Finally I attached the flap to the back of the bag.

Step 15 a asks you to measure 3.8 cm (1.5 ") in from each side edge. This would be the point were you would start stitching to attach the flap.

I only measured 1.5 cm in, because I did not want my bag to get ears, after frequent use.

As it is very difficult to pin the flap to the bag (2 layers of stiff interfacing) I used some glue to keep them together. This made it very easy to do the stitching. I did 2 rows of stitching, to keep the look simple.

My bag is almost ready!

All that is left to do is make and attach the dividers.

More about it in my next post.

Kristien