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Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Some bag making advice, please?

I have a few questions for you bag making experts out there. 

I'm planning on making this bag:


I have the pattern (obviously) and the cotton duck it requires for the interfacing.

The thing I'm not sure about is that it calls for mid-weight home dec fabric for both the lining and exterior. I'm not completely sure what I want to use to make it at this stage anyway, but I'd really like to use some of my Melody Miller cotton/linen blend fabric for both the exterior and interior. Would this work as is, do you think? It is a bit heavier than regular quilting cotton, but I'm not sure if it's heavy enough to work in this bag. The other option I'm considering is making the pieces QAYG using a combination of quilting cotton and linen/cotton blend - would this be a viable option?

Any and all advice would be really appreciated :o)

xx Jess  

PS - did you really think I'd stick to my FAL list without any distractions? I lasted a couple of days at least ;o)

18 comments:

  1. Well I'm not an expert (and far from it).. but I would say that a cotton/linen blend would work ! Especially if you use cotton duck in the bag.

    So yes, I say you could totally try it !

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  6. Sorry for that. I don't know what happened !

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  7. Amy Butler's home dec fabric is lighter weight than the Melody Miller fabric so the MM should definitely work. Can't wait to see what you do with it.

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  8. I have this pattern so I was looking at the instructions and I think you could easily use whatever you want. The exterior fabric gets sew to the cotton duck and that would give it more stability. You could always add a light weight woven fusible interfacing to the back of your exterior fabric as well.

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  9. I go a lot by feel, so I would recommend that if you can take a scrap--about 4" square--and sew it to the duck as directed, you should be able to tell if it will give you the feel you want. I also would try trolling the Amy Butler flickr group for other bags and see if they have a blog review.
    I made one Amy Butler bag and the super stiff interfacing was...challenging.

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  10. I agree with all the wise ladies above. :) If you find you want a little more support, a fusible woven interfacing is always an easy addition to make. AB's home dec fabric is flowier than lots of other home dec fabric so the cotton/linen is actually comparable I think.

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  11. I used all regular quilting cotton for mine and added some medium fusible interfacing to the lining fabric. The cotton duck gives great stability and I also added two layers of batting. I think anything goes in qayg for the exterior.

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  12. When I make my purses I always use cotton fabric with fusible fleece instead of home dec & cotton duck. It has always worked best for me and can be used like a batting if you want to quilt it. Good luck, I've had my eye on this pattern for awhile and would love to hear how it turns out!

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  13. Well it seems as if you have plenty of advice already and I would either use interfacing or do QAYG. Di x

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  14. You can make any quilting weight cotton into home dec weight by fusing lightweight interfacing to it.
    And I refuse to use duck cloth or peltex or any other such nonsense in my bags anymore. They just become sooooo hard to sew. I love them, but they're difficult. Now I use ByAnnie's Soft & Stable. It's the best stuff in the world.

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  15. Oh, I can't wait to see what you do with this! Something marvelous, I'm sure!

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  16. Hi Jess. No advice from me, as you probably know more than I do. I do however, love a soft fabric for lining any bags I make. Thinking of you and the people of your country just now. Hope you are safe from the flames. xx

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  17. Haha girl after my own heart! Focus Jess Focus! But I'm exactly the same two new projects started and a third in the thought process!

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Thank you for commenting! I love to get feedback (good and bad) on my projects - it's what keeps me blogging :o)