My most recent sewing project finish is a Messenger Bag in a beautiful blue barkcloth fabric called Elaine. This fabric is from the Outback Wife collection by Gertrude Made for Ella Blue.
This bag has three mods that I'll go over in more detail below. But here are the main ways it differs from the pattern:
- Magnetic Snaps
- Zipper Pocket
- Hanging Loop
Magnetic Snaps
For this bag, I wanted to use the black slide and rectangle ring hardware. These black hardware pieces are my favorite, but the cinch buckles don't come in black and I just couldn't do it with mismatched hardware. So the solution was to skip the cinch buckle.
Using the smaller of the two box bottom gauges, the male snaps were installed 1.25" from the edges of the lining flap fabric piece.
The pattern instructions are written for both the exterior and lining side of the flap to be the same fabric. I don't really remember why I did it that way, other than that's how I made that particular bag, and it does turn out quite nice if you're use a home dec weight fabric for both sides of the flap. It gives the flap some weight and makes it feel like it has some substance. But of course, it's totally fine to use quilting cotton for the lining side, and here I've backed the lining fabric with muslin and Pellon 987f fleece.
Then I turned the bag RS out above the zipper. So my opening hole was at the top front of the bag instead of in the side of the lining. Having it at the front makes it easy to reach inside and add the snaps once the bag is almost completely done. Then I can see exactly where they need to go. I do stuff the bag to simulate fullness to help me line everything up straight. If you sew the opening like how it's described here, then it's easy to sew it closed neatly at the end.
Zipper Pocket
There is a document with instructions for adding a zippered pocket to this bag. But I just did it the rough cut way like how the Improv Zip Wristlet is made. So all I had to do was draw a line across the B pattern piece and then that was my guide for adding a zipper.
Hanging Loop
My previous messenger bag pattern had a hanging/carrying loop at the base of the flap, so I decided to add one of those to this bag too. This piece was made with a 3" wide x 10" long piece of fabric pressed into 4ths.
Supplies mentioned in this post are also available on etsy: