Thursday, January 3, 2013

Scrappy Straps for your Scrappy Bags: A Tutorial

New year!! Yay! I hope everyone had a safe and fun new year. I stayed at home and stitched all day long. It was nice to get into that groove again and now I am re-energized to make a bunch of new bags. I especially excited because I am going to be tackling some new themes!! Sherlock! Valentines day!....well that has more to do with the fact that I inherited a bunch of lovey dovey type fabrics and with the holiday coming up I thought "why not!"

Since I started making my patchwork bags I've had a lot of people ask me how I make my scrappy strap to go with it. I've explained it but I'm always one for a tutorial with pictures, so I've finally remembered to take pictures so I can share it with you now!

Start with a bunch of fabric scraps. Cut them into strips about 2 inches wide; length is irrelevant, I have bunches that are short and bunches that are long. Now remember, there is no right or wrong here, it can be a bit thicker, it can be a bit thinner. I've found that 2 inches wide is the sweet spot to make sure your strap doesn't end up too flimsy (in my opinion).

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Take your first two strips and sew them together overlapping about 2 inches. Now at this point if they're relatively short strips, I just keep sewing down one strip, taking the next piece and overlapping and keep the needle running (hope this is making sense!). If it's a longer piece, I run the needle back and forth a couple of times on the overlap between two strips and then cut the thread there. No need to waste thread when you're not going to have another overlap for quite a bit (if the strip is long).

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Once you have a long long chain of strips, step away from your machine. I cut this long chain into 6 smaller pieces, roughly the length of my arms stretched out.

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Gather the ends of all 6 pieces and sew them together.

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Find someplace to anchor the end of your strips - I use a chair back (very high tech I know) - and separate the strips into 3 sections of 2. Braid the strips now.

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Once you've braided it to the length of your choosing, sew the other end and trim.

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Now you're ready to sew it onto your bag!

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12 comments:

  1. You did it, u showed us how to make those straps. I was getting ready to make one, but never imagined you do it this way. Thank you for the new years gift of learning a new skill! ;-)

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  2. Neat! I've always thought your handles fit so well with your bags. Perfectly scrappy!

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  3. Wow... that explains a lot! I never would have guessed that's what you did. :)

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  4. It never occurred to me to sew The strips together like that. Derp! :-P

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  5. Any tips on how to sew the strap into the bag? Do you sew it to the lining first? Thanks for the tute!

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    1. I sew the straps to the corners of the bag shell itself, before sewing in the lining. Hope that helps!

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    2. Thanks! I will give it a go! Shouldnt be too hard :)

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  7. Awesome! Thanks for sharing! I've made a braided denim belt in a somewhat similar fashion, just with longer steps and more stitching, because denim frays so badly. I have an entire pillowcase full of vintage sheet scraps......this gives me some new ideas.......

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