Are you ready to sew this baby up? (If you are doing a diaper bag, wait until next week, I will be posting modifications)
****edited to add in the flap instruction. I am sorry I omitted it :(***
First things first :) You need to add your flap to the back side of the bag exterior (the side that has the zipper pocket in it :)
Place your flap and the back of your exterior, right sides together. Center your flap and place it 2-1/4" inches down from the top edge of the exterior.
Sew it into place using a 1/4" seam.
Zig-zag stitch along the edge as seen above.
This is tricky to see, but fip your flap over and top stitch it down.
Take care to make sure that the little edges at the end of each seam don't show ;D
***Take care to keep the flap out of the way during the rest of the bag assembly***
Now, take your exterior and sew up the sides :) Use a 1/2" seam allowance.
Before you do the same to your interior, please trim a 1/2 inch off of each end (the end right about the big pockets).
Once you have done that, you may sew up ONE of the sides of the interior all of the way, and the other side, leave a 4" opening in the seam in the middle of the side, like so...
This next part is a little tricky to explain... We need to make sure that the side seams for the exterior and interior line up... so that the opening is the same size. Lay your exterior on top of the interior and see if the side seams line up, like shown in the two pictures below. If one of the bags seam is off, just take in one of the bags side seam, until they are the same :)
Now for the bottom corners. Now take both the interior and exterior and do the same thing on both.
Lay the bag corner flat, and put a ruler on it as shown above. The point of the triangle should hit the 2-3/4" mark and the bottom of the ruler should form a nice even triangle ;D
Draw a line as seen above. Sew along this line for all four corners (two on the exterior and two on the interior) For the exterior corners, I reinforce the seam by back stitching several times at the beginning and the end of the seam.
(Some people cut off the triangle tabs, I do not. I have been making bags for a very long time, and leaving the triangles seems to lend strength to the bags bottom corners.)
Now you need to have the exterior in side out, and the interior, right side out :)
Now take your exterior and pin the strap in place.
The side of the strap that you want to show the most, should be touching the exterior of the bag. Be sure that at least 1.5" of the strap extends past the edge. Take great care that the strap does not get twisted :/ Once it is pinned in place, shove all of the strap down in the bag, out of the way.
Now you may place the interior into the exterior.
Their right sides will be touching.
The strap will be under the interior, pinned in place.
Now carefully pin the top edge.
Sew all of the way around with a 1/2" seam. Go slow. You may want to use a 90 or 100 size needle as you are sewing through TONS of layers.
Once you are all of the way around, go back and do a little zig-zag reinforcement on the strap.
Now turn your bag through the side seam that you left in the bag interior.
Once you are all tuned right side out, either hand stitch or machine stitch the opening. (I use a narrow zig-zag)
The final stitch is to do a 1/4" inch top stitch around the top of the bag.
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You did it!!! You are finished :)
On Instagram use #MQDtemplebagQAL and #MyQuiltDiet to share your progress:)
Check the schedule for the QAL HERE. Visit all post's tagged Temple Bag Qal HERE
**** As a special side note, if you live anywhere close to Payson, Utah, we will be doing this project together on the last Thursday of January. Please message me if you would like information about coming to sew with us :) No creepy murderers, please ;D
***One of my quilty BFF's is an Embroidery Guru! She has templates for many of the LDS temples :) She will embroider an LDS temple for your bag, if you'd like :) It is $5 if she already has the template, and $10 if she needs to order it. Please leave me a comment, if you are interested. Be sure that you are not a "no reply blogger" or I cannot get your info to her :( If you are not sure if you are a "no reply blogger" please include your email in your comment. One hint that you might be a "no reply blogger" is if I never reply to your comments :(:::.....
Awesome!
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