Cloning a Shopping Bag | This is not a how to but a discussion of my process

[@susanowen1709]

Good morning & happy Friday! Hope those of you who celebrate had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday. Mine was good; did a little bit of sewing, made way too much food for just two people (including from-scratch cranberry sauce which is the easiest thing in the world to make, a little cake/cobbler thingy using blackberries from our own bramble, and a small batch of peanut butter cookies - a tradition of mine since I was a teen so you know, shortly after the cooling of the earth), and everything turned out well despite using too much milk in the cake/cobbler thingy and not enough flour in the cookies. No idea where my brain was there... French seams are so nice. I used to not like making them, as they always came out bulky & wider than in the videos I watched. Then I saw a tutorial where they trimmed the first seam allowance down to 1/8" before enclosing it in the second stitching & that made all the difference in the world. I guess the people making the other videos presumed that everyone just already knew that step. Anyway now I love them. Your bags turned out great! The third one is my favorite; those fabrics are divine! The Iron Man fabric is fun, too.

[@fredmakesthings]

I'm glad you had a great holiday. The nice things about cake cobbler hybrid things it that things like that can be quite forgiving. I enjoy french seams too but they can be annoying. These are my first that didn't give me any issue. It helps that my edges were clean and straight with very little bulk. I am also much better at sewing straight lines too 😁I never thought about trimming the seam down after stitching, that would be a game changer. I wish I knew that yesterday ( a little foreshadowing for one of next month's videos) I thought you'd like the last one. It is so bright and fun. The others are great too, but I guess that makes sense since I picked the fabric for each of them.

[@KenyaddaCrochet]

You did a great job. The marvel fabric is my favorite one.

[@fredmakesthings]

Thank you 😊 it’s my favourite too!

[@klwmadeit]

Very cute!.. you did a great job making this 😊

[@fredmakesthings]

Thank you 😊

[@themidgeling]

If it makes you feel any better, that particular bag may be her original design, but the idea and style is not her original design. I have seen variations of this for many years - long before reusable bags were common. I was in Tokyo a year or two ago and these style bags are common in shops there. She took the idea and made her own version, just as you are doing!

[@fredmakesthings]

Thank you, it does 😊 it’s hard to make judgement calls when you don’t know who’s done what and when. I know bags like this are popular in different ways, but I had never seen one quite like this one. ❤️