Jacquard Kitt Coach Crossbody Handbag. Make Fashion Bags and Purses. If you want to use lighter -weight fabrics for bags, it is recommended you use a fusible fabric or other stiffening or support fabric. This is to strengthen your bag and preserve its shape so it won’t immediately collapse once it has been loaded up. I recommend a firm but lightweight fusible such as Vilene® H250 for lightweight fabrics and a heavier fusible drill for medium weight fabrics.

Jacquard Kitt Coach Signature Crossbody

Coach Signature Jacquard Kitt
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Beige

Coach Signature Jacquard Kitt
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Green

Coach Signature Jacquard Kitt
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Pink

Make at home fashion bags and purses

Canvas – this is an excellent choice for bags as it is tough and hardwearing; as with denim, there is no particular need to line it (it can be neatened with zigzag). It is also very easy to sew. Although it may seem plain and dull when bought, it can easily be smartened up through choice of notions and decoration. See Chapters 3 and 12 for two different bag styles using the exact same dark brown canvas fabric; the matt dark brown of the canvas in each case contrasts with both harmonizing and colourful shiny or semi-shiny decorative materials.

Coach Signature Jacquard Chaise
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Brown

Coach Signature Jacquard Chaise
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Khaki

Coach Signature Jacquard Kira
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Brown

Leather the ease of cutting, punching and general stability of leather make it a good choice for finishing a number of accessories with buckles. For buckles, I have used a relatively thick cowhide leathe thickness, which can be marked reasonably easily with fineliners or a pencil and cut with sharp fabric scissors. This isn’t a book about leathercraft, and the constraints of the project don’t demand that a simple buckle will need to be finished in any particular way; all that matters is that the cutting of the pieces is neat and straight.

However, you may also want to use a different weight of leather for appliqué or to make small leather items such as purses. Good leather can be quite expensive when bought as a skin, and because of the differential stretch over parts of the skin, variable in quality; a good part of the skin may go to waste. It can be more economical to buy old leather garments from discount leather stores and cut them up; that way the quality of the leather is more uniform and predictable. With prudent cutting you can also use the lining of the garment to make pockets or bag/purse linings – a great way to recycle and create one-off pieces in the process!

Coach Signature Jacquard Shay
Crossbody Handbag Cross Body, Beige

Coach Signature Jacquard Turnlock
Hayden Handbag Cross Body, Beige

Coach Signature Jacquard Turnlock
Hayden Handbag Cross Body, Navy

Canvas bag is made from practical medium-weight canvas and given extra shape through darting at the base. The carrying straps attached at either side are long enough for the bag to be worn across the body. They are made from lengths of two types of ribbon binding machined together: one a colourful silk ribbon, the other a dark navy synthetic ribbon binding.

The silk ribbon is slightly wider than the synthetic ribbon, which creates a flash of colour when the bag is worn. The ribbon carrying straps are themselves reinforced by straps cut from brown leather, and gold effect buckles. Finally, the bag is closed with an oversized snap fastener sewn just inside the top edge. Canvas is strong and very easy to sew, needing only a zigzag stitch around the edges to neaten it sufficiently. This bag is not lined and does not have pockets; most of the stitching is machine-stitching.

To give you an idea of the size of the bag, it is large enough to carry a very slim A5 notebook and writing materials.

Coach Jacquard Elise Satchel
Handbag Satchel Black

Coach Jacquard Elise Satchel
Handbag Satchel Blue

Coach Jacquard Elise Satchel
Handbag Satchel Gold

Indian bag is a very popular design, perhaps because of its unusual Indian-inspired ‘ethnic’ flavour. It uses genuine Indian cottons and vintage trims (including a shisha mirror trim), along with a thin printed paisley silk lining, harmonizing lurex tassels, thin gold furnishing braid and tiny gold effect bells to finish. The tricky parts to this bag are perhaps sewing the ogee-shaped flap and the arrowhead-shaped decorative elements at the base of the bag. In all other respects the bag is fairly straightforward to construct.

It is slightly stiffened with a light but firm fusible stiffener, as the cotton itself is fairly lightweight. Both hand and machine construction are used here. Quite a lot of handstitching is used to sew on the trims and this may take some time. The printing on Indian fabrics of this type may very often be directional.

Where this is the case, as for the fabric used in this project, ensure that the pattern pieces are cut so that the print proceeds the right way up the fabric. It does not matter that the bag flap at the top, which is a continuation from the bag back, will show the design going ’the wrong way’ since a relatively small amount of the fabric is on show. However, the bag back, front, and tabs all need to be cut with respect to the direction of pattern. The bag carrying strap does not have a pattern provided. It can be drawn directly onto the fabric.