Welcome to our sewing community!

Established by Faye Shepard, a professional tutor in sewing and dressmaking, the 'Mates Create' blog aims to provide an online resource to enhance your sewing and learning experience. Here you will find links to useful websites and fellow bloggers including;

sewing basics to get you started,

projects and tutorials to inspire you,

patterns to download,

sites to purchase fabrics and haberdashery .... etc....


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

My overnight bag




I recently made a large bag by following this free pattern and tutorial http://www.make-baby-stuff.com/free-diaper-bag-pattern.html

The tutorial is actually intended for a smaller size nappy bag, but I just enlarged the pattern to create a good size for an overnight bag.

I chose a heavyweight printed cotton fabric that was originally a curtain!

Tips:

Choose a heavyweight fabric and for extra thickness place interfacing between the outer fabric and lining.
Use a stiff interfacing (buchram) between the fabric layers at the base of the bag to make it extra sturdy. Top stitch around this seam to keep a good shape.

Stitch a good length of the bag straps to the body of the bag to allow for taking the weight of the overnight contents!

Sew together with a strong, thick thread (40 - 50 cotton or polyester) using a thick needle (size 14-16) to ensure strong seams and durability of your bag.

Trim pockets with a strip of bias binding.

Happy sewing!

Getting started and keeping in touch.....

Hello all!
I am new to the world of blogging but thought it would be an excellent way to keep in touch with, and enhance the learning experience for my students.... I hope to see some of your faces as my followers!
As described above, I aim to provide useful resources, juicy information and projects to inspire you, as and when I discover them on the world wide web... this is work in progress so please bear with me as I learn and find the time to develp the basic page into a bright, colourful, all singing, all dancing sewing blog!
Please feel free to share your comments / ideas / tips / interesting finds / useful resources / projects etc.. and help to build our sewing community!

Thanks,
Faye