Beginner Upcycled Denim Tote - Live Tutorial w/ Lisa Capen - Free Pattern

hello everybody happy friday happy friday today is august the 20th y'all okay so just as a proclaimer this is going to be a long video we're going to spend a good portion of our afternoon together this is not going to be one of those quick three-minute five-minute tutorials that walks you through how to make a denim tote bag so uh please stick with me on this hello everybody let me refresh these comments so that i can see everybody hello everybody i want to thank my moderators today as we get started thank you all so so much hello everybody yo today uh we're making a very beginner friendly tote bag i'm using recycled blue jeans in mind but you don't have to okay and if you want to download the instructions there is a free i call it a pattern but uh basically there are instructions down in the description box if you want to grab that and download it and print it off this video we're going to walk through these instructions and i'll give you some tips and you can actually see it being done very beginner friendly y'all this is one of the one of the totes that i make i when i grow up i want to be someone who makes bags like the more intricate detailed bags with the zippers and the in the pockets and all the things but i'm just not there this is one of the totes that i make and it's super easy and uh and it looks really nice and it's super functional it's super functional hello everybody it's so great to see you so make sure you grab that uh and we'll go over that here in a minute before we get started today uh i just want to do a reminder for those of you who are on patreon tomorrow night at 8 p.m we're doing our monthly zoom meet okay this is the meeting where we all come together we do the show and tell of what you've been working on we do a q a so if you have questions about projects you're working on we can try to answer questions and then we're going to do another demo at the end of that meeting tomorrow night with crumbs little baby baby baby crumbs and we're gonna make this ornament okay so that's what we're doing tomorrow night the link will be up on patreon 8 p.m i will be recording that so if you have plans and you have to miss it you can come back on the replay hello everybody all right so with permission uh i get to share a photo of this taupe made with just fabric right i'm using recycle blue jeans but uh you don't have to uh i sent this pattern to miss jeannie over in the creative crew um about a week ago maybe a little less than that i forget what day i sent it to her because she uh she offered to proofread my um robin i see you're here stick around for a minute uh she offered to proofread my patterns if i have time before i release them because when i did the down-home christmas quilt i had quite a few typos in there and uh so if i have time she proofreads my my patterns for me and she made this tote and y'all it is gorgeous so just take a look at this i asked her if i could share her tote and uh this is the picture that she sent me doesn't this look like something she bought at the store right isn't that fabric gorgeous oh my goodness i love it she made this tote using the same instructions that we're doing today okay so you don't have to use the denim you can absolutely pull out some of your favorite patterns your favorite fabrics and make this tote the exact same way you can even get a little bit more complicated and add magnetic closures snap closures velcro closures pockets on the inside you could do all stuff this is just the basic bag right isn't that gorgeous yes i love it so much i love it so much y'all okay so last week i asked for ideas for videos coming up because y'all i just draw a blank after so many weeks you know doing videos videos videos i drew a blank y'all gave me so many awesome ideas and i've gone through and i've made a huge list it's huge but y'all some of these things we already have videos on and i want to put up a list i want to put up a list right here okay these are some of the content creators here on youtube that i like to watch uh many of you asked for bull cozies angel at halo inspirations this past wednesday put up a video on how to make bull cozies i watched the video and i personally don't really love making bull cozies i made one and it was a disaster but after watching her video it kind of put me in the mood to make some more so if you want to make bold cozies check out angel's video it just came up wednesday all right check out her channel halo inspirations zippered coin pouches robin at rs island crafts uh her video if you scroll through her channel it was about two weeks ago she did a really simple zippered coin as a coin patch or coin pouch go watch that video she walks you through it and uh it's the perfect size to throw in your tote that you make today you could put coins you could put money you could put your cards uh you could put sewing notions in it it's a perfect little zippered bag uh julia with stitches by julia if you scroll through her channel y'all she does this bag that's made like a rag quilt but she makes it into a bag and she does a lot of thrifting for jeans and stuff like i do and so uh yeah go check out that video she uh her bag has a flip over top with a button closure super cute check that out and then miss lizzy with lizzy brewers that's lizzie brewer is the name of her youtube channel if you scroll through her videos i forget how long uh a week or so ago y'all if you're looking to make christmas ornaments she made the most adorable little angel out of lace it's called lacy angel ornaments go through her channel and find that out y'all um here's the thing i'm not great with working with zippers i did do a shirt with a zippered opening a port short video that's about the extent of my zippers uh maybe i'll get better at it but y'all a lot of our friends here on youtube have videos and they do a much better job at demonstrating some of this stuff than i do i know my weak points i know some of my stronger points y'all check out these videos some of the things we are going to do though some of the things we are going to do because we're not going to be doing any more great big quilt projects for the rest of 2021 we're gearing up to go towards the gift-giving season towards christmas and thanksgiving we're going to start making smaller projects projects that you can knock out relatively quickly we all have quilts going on right but these projects are going to be geared for things that you can make to give as gifts for christmas birthdays things like that and uh yeah so i did from that list take several different ideas some of the things we're gonna do a casserole trivet hot pad mini hot pad mitts oh i can't wait for that some mug rugs i got an email asking about making a wheelchair or walker bags possibly a tree skirt and possibly a table runner so those are some of the things that we'll be doing here on my channel thank you all so much for all of the suggestions sometimes you just need a point of reference right tell me a place to focus and that'll help me stay help me uh make some videos hello everybody hello hello hello all right i'm going to switch the camera over again y'all this is not going to be so quick we might spend the afternoon together but the good news is is that i have pre-done uh some of the cutting and i've already pre-made one of the straps so we will save some time there and i've pre-done some applique which is kind of optional right but let me show you uh okay so this might be one of the videos we're doing coming up this is a quilt as you go uh casserole size trivet that also serves as a hot pad isn't that pretty yes quilt as you go i'm working on the pattern for this i made this yesterday afternoon and i think it's gorgeous we used it last night to put the casserole or the pyrex on isn't that pretty isn't that pretty okay so let's take a look at the bag you saw this bag on the thumbnail for this video right i put a pocket on the front uh look it's got the box corners we're doing that today and on this bag i put the pin cushion on the front i applicate the pin cushion i did do a little bit of hand stitching i did a back is that a back stitch uh for the little needles isn't that so cute so i did do some applique on this side of the bag these jeans were harlan's he ripped a hole in his buttocks not sure if you can hear me i am frozen oh we're green again let's see if it comes back are we back amanda says we're back okay we're back [Laughter] uh just to let y'all know we do have some weather rolling in today and so i noticed right before i came on the little green box that shows me my internet was yellow for a split second so it did go red i think because of the weather coming through that uh the internet will be a little bit spotty and i'll try to pay attention if i'm buffering or something just hold on for a second because hopefully i'll come right back right now we're green so i think we're good and i don't know what all you missed but we're going to take a look at the things we need for this bag okay uh this pattern i say i keep saying pattern but really there's nothing to trace in here they're just instructions if you want to use blue jeans you're gonna roughly need two pairs of blue jeans and that's gonna depend on the size of blue jeans you're working with if you're using smaller jeans you might need more than two pairs it also depends on the cut of jeans if you're working with the skinny jeans you might need more than two pairs uh fortunately my favorite cut of blue jeans is boot cut so those tend to be a little bit wider and when i go thrifting for blue jeans i look for the biggest genes that i can find because it gives me more denim to work with so roughly two pairs of jeans you'll need two inside fabrics i have mine right here that are cut 15 inches wide and 16 inches tall you'll need four pieces of fusible interfacing for the straps it's really kind of optional but you'll see that it really adds a nice body to your strap makes it a little bit uh stronger and it's going to make it a little bit easier to make your straps i used pellon p44f that's my go-to fusible interfacing for everything and that's the interfacing that i'm using you'll need about four strips that are three inches wide and 20 inches long you'll need some pins or some binding clips right and then uh for the machine needles because i'm a lot of times people ask me i'm using a size 80 12 universal smith's needle now if your machine is struggling with your denim you might want to up the size of your needle to a 90 14 or even a jeans needle okay that might be helpful for you i'm using a polyester thread today it is an ak trading company thread and uh you could use a cotton thread if you want and then the little note down here does say that instead of denim you can cut your pieces out of fabric like miss jeannie did hello everybody so the first thing to do to start this bag is we're going to cut out all of our pieces right let me show you before we get on to that a lot of people are going to say how did you disassemble your jeans i do have two diagrams towards the back of the instructions on how i cut out my blue jeans okay i just cut right below the where the pocket would come down and end just cut your legs right off right there that's going to give you two long legs to work with for the body of the bag i cut the end seam a lot of those times the way the jeans are made if you cut along the outside seam when you lay it flat you're going to have some bagginess in this seam so i like to separate my jeans legs on the inseam it's going to help the piece lay down a lot flatter you'll lay down the leg and cut your body pieces from two legs okay so there's one pair of jeans you're going to be left over with this section cut off right above the legs and this is where i source a lot of my pockets from the back pockets you can see i've already cut apart this pair of jeans and sometimes you can use the belt loops you know to hang your keys on i like to source all kinds of stuff from the top parts of the jeans so don't throw that away you could source so much stuff from this top part so that's how i got the body of my bag okay you'll see outside body of bag where to cut and then how to cut your 15 by 16 inch pieces that's for the outside part of your bag for the straps of the bag i took a second pair of blue jeans and i cut off the legs just like we did before and i did not separate the seams i just cut both layers uh both layers four inches wide and that gave me four pieces okay and then i sewed two pieces together and two pieces together that gave me two long four inch strap sections to work with so that is how i cut apart my jeans to get the materials for today's project for in and out in and out buffering it's going to be one of those days y'all like we've got a green light let's keep going okay so i have all of this stuff stacked up here let me move some of it aside because we're not there quite yet all right so i have my lining pieces isn't this going to be gorgeous with the denim i wish you could see it in person versus the camera because i always think it looks a little bit different in person 15 inches wide 16 inches tall and i cut mine so the stripes would be going vertically instead of horizontally there are two pieces here this is going to be the inside lining we're going to get to that in a second this is the outside of my bag it just does fit in the camera this is going to be the front or the back and then this is going to be the other side this isn't this so cute this is already stitched down uh there's so much that you could do with all of this real estate now trinita asked if we could do a back to school project many of you asked if we could do um thanksgiving or halloween themed projects y'all this bag is an open canvas you could put anything on the front or the back of this bag i chose the sewing machine this sewing machine came from my sewing machine mug rug pattern if you have purchased this mug rug pattern from my etsy shop go back to etsy because i uploaded that listing to include the larger version of the sewing machine uh i took that applique i blew it up and that's how i got the large applique for this bag and i loved it so much that i did go back and upload a separate file so if you have gotten that pattern and you would like the large sewing machine go back to etsy and it should be there if it's not send me a message on etsy and i'll just email it to you but uh yeah so there's the large sewn machine i did take some time to save time in today's video and stitch it all down isn't that so cute diana you got it last week go back to etsy you'll go to etsy's home page and look in the top right hand corner there's a little icon that says you click on that and a menu pops down and there will be an option that says purchases and reviews click on that and you'll see all the purchases you've made on etsy you should see the pattern right there click on that and see if there is not now an additional file that's the larger extra file for this if it's not there send me a message on etsy and i'll email it to you but if you purchase the pattern now it's already there i don't know if it updates existing orders do you know what i'm saying so what i did think would be fun since i saved all this time stitching down my applique is that if we add some denim pockets to this part together so i'm going to set this little part to the side we're going to sew down some pockets before we get started actually making this bag uh i thought it would be fun to use one of the back pockets or maybe both of the back pocket or this is the front pocket look with the little pocket on the front these pockets have little snaps i thought that would be cute and then we can layer another pocket right down here i thought that would be super cute i did bring in some lacy trims some little um tidbits of fabric and i thought we could just do some layering on this side of the bag so that's what we're going to get started with today let's see where do we want these pockets to be i do know that i want to stay away from those seams we're going to be piecing this bag with half inch seams so i know that i need to stay at least a half inch away from the sides right and we're going to be boxing the corners of this bag which means that's going to eat up some of this real estate so i'm going to stay away from the bottom a little bit too we will put that there i'm going to cut a section of this little doily because i think that would be adorable we're going to do some layers again staying away from the edge like that i think that would be cute we might even throw in some of these little patches like that i think that would be adorable we'll throw in a blue one like that and let's see we'll do this paisley looking one like that and like that y'all i'm just doing spur of the moment little placement i think that's super cute don't you all right so before we move on we're going to go ahead and sew this stuff down let me bring over froggy i'm going to just pin these pieces in place and lift up these pockets for a second right let's move this so you can see it more there we go just so you can get an idea of how you can just add some embellishments there we go i'm going to lift up these pockets for a second we're going to bring this to the sewing machine i'm just going to do a simple straight stitch right around the edge and uh just basically tack these things down with a simple straight stitch bring it over to the sewing machine i'm just going to bring these things right on over oh or we could do a zigzag stitch i think that would be pretty let's see i'm going to start right there i'm not even going towards the outer outer edge because i'm okay if my things fray i think that's kind of cute we're just going to go around these edges really quick just tack them down see how i'm leaving these little scalloped edges loose i think that's adorable see how quick that went by we're just going to jump right back down here and i'm going to do the same thing with these pieces now i did not uh add an interfacing to the back side of my jeans uh they are a little stretchy see that if you wanted to you could have interfaced your denim material before this part before cutting out your pieces for this bag i wasn't so much worried about it and so i have not interfaced the back side okey-dokey we're gonna create even more layers we're gonna bring back the denim pockets i don't know where that pin went we're gonna bring back the denim pockets and lay them right back on top just recreating that same layout as the way we had it before i moved everything i think that's super cute now instead of doing a zigzag stitch i will switch over to a straight stitch okay and uh i'm going to increase my stitch length to a 3.0 we're sewing through several layers at this point right we have the layers of the denim pocket any embellishments that we added and then this denim part of our bag so increasing that stitch length will help a lot uh let's go ahead and sew down this first pocket i'm just doing a straight stitch right along this top seam this is where a thicker needle might come in handy for you or a jeans needle okay i'm going to skip over this little strap right there so i'm going to back stitch and then just lift my needle up and skip right over top of that strap right there my main goal is just to really secure that pocket in place now this pocket has a flap so i'm going to lift this flap up we don't want to sew the pocket closed right we want to be able to use that pocket and then i'm going to jump right down here and continue sewing i will have to jump over these little embellishments on the pocket just lift that needle and jump right over backstitch skip over those little stars all right so there is our first pocket that is sewn down let's bring over the second one we'll put that back in place i'm going to start right underneath of this little piece right here this little rivet that was holding this pocket together again we'll just be skipping over any parts like that this pocket down here has a little flap so we're going to sew right to the top of that flap do a back stitch we're going to raise that needle and we're going to open up this flap and skip right over top of it now one of the things about the denim pockets that i meant to tell you if you don't like your denim to fray over time you could take a little bit of fabric glue with your finger and just rub the edge of that pocket with your fabric glue and let it dry that will prevent your denim from fraying around your pockets i personally like it when it frays so i don't do that you could also use fray check if you wanted ooh we came close to that one let's skip that one and we're coming over to where we started oh we got close to that one too all right y'all that went by pretty pretty quick but i knew if i had done this part so many of you would have had questions right how did you sew your pockets on so i wanted to demonstrate how i just really quickly add some layers embellishments and reuse those uh pockets off of my upcycled jeans right hello everybody it's so great to see y'all now we can start making the bag oh in case you just came in thank you to my moderators thank you all so much y'all make it a lot easier to do live videos i'm going to cut all these little jump stitches y'all make it so much nicer to do live videos and i don't have to worry about any of the shenanigans going on we have a few little jump stitches i'm just going to trim those right off isn't that cute though look little pockets on the front of the bag these little pockets have snaps i think that's adorable when i go thrifting for jeans i like looking in the uh the kids section too not only are the jeans usually a little bit cheaper there but they have the most cute adorable little pockets so check that out if you like one thrifting or yard sailing all right so we have both sides of the bag done front and back now we're gonna start sewing y'all all right so actually i guess my bag has i don't know which side would be the front or the back they're both super cute right the first thing we're going to do to make this bag is we want to put the pretty sides facing each other and just make sure since they are directional that they're both going the right direction we're going to line up these raw edges all the way around and you can use your binding clips you can uh use pins you could even glue baste these edges if you want i'm just going to throw some pins in there myself because that's a little bit quicker and for me just helps keep these edges nice and lined up pretty accurately for this seam we will be using a half inch seam allowance okay so set your sewing machine to a half inch seam allowance i'll need to remember to do that here in just a second we're not sewing the top edge of this bag yet just the two sides and along the bottom when we start let's go ahead and do a back stitch at the beginning and at the end just to hold this together really well and let me get my half inch seam allowance set up there we go i'm still going to use the open toe foot because i think you can see a little bit better for the video uh but generally i would have used probably the standard pressing foot that came with my jukey we're going to do this at the same time we're going to bring over the lining pieces let's do both of these seams at the same time so there's the outside portion of our bag and here's the inside portion of our bag both of them 15 by 16. let's put pretty sides together and again we will pin these two pieces of fabric together for our lining [Music] just matching up those raw edges hopefully our internet is behaving just throwing some pins in there oh i ran out of pins there we go yeah i'm not quite sure if it's the weather getting ready to move through or if they're doing some work on our lines i don't know what's going on but the internet has been kind of sporadic today all right so now we can bring this to the sewing machine and while we're there we're going to do both the lining and the outside portion of our bag all right and i have my half inch seam allowance set up there we go we're going to do the back stitch at the beginning and at the ends i don't know if y'all can hear my bird he is mad right now these layers are a little bit shifted because of the applique work i'm going to just sew right off the end and then flip everything around we're going to be boxing the corners of this bag so you know this doesn't so much matter looks like we still have a green light all right so we're coming back up towards the top of the bag and we're going to do a little back stitch right here and while we're right here i'm gonna pull this off to the side and we're going to bring in the lining and do the exact same thing i love the stripes in this fabric i think the stripes are phenomenal we're going to go across the bottom oh almost didn't catch that pin and now we're coming up the other side towards the top and we'll do our little back stitch at the end all right so there's the body of the bag and the lining of the bag y'all are so sweet thank y'all so much let's take these pins out there we go and i'll cut this little leader off and then we have the body of the bag the outside let me take these pins out the very next thing we're going to do is we're going to box the corners now this part is optional you might want your tote to have the little pokey parts on the outside of the tote at the bottom you do not have to box the corners of this bag but what this does is provide a flatter surface for your bag to sit more upright when you place it down so we're gonna go ahead and do that okay a lot of you already know how to do this some of you don't and before i started making these simple totes uh i did not know how to box the corners and i found some videos that were really helpful so we're going to walk through those steps to me i think it's probably the trickiest part of making this bag let me get a ruler and a pencil or a pen that you can see i'm going to use stuff that uh ordinarily i would probably say don't use but i want you to be able to see the lines right use this this is just a chalk marker and you can see it on the denim right but i'm going to use a permanent fabric marker i probably would not use this to do it but it shows up really well in the videos see that i probably ordinarily wouldn't use that for this but i want you to be able to see it so let's start with the inside lining we're going to find at the top of the bag so that's the bottom we're going to stick our hand inside the bag down towards one of the corners see that we're going to open this corner up and this is going to be this is going to feel really kind of awkward we're going to open up that corner with our fingers just like that and we want this side seam see that to be right in the middle of this point so it's going to feel a little awkward for a second we're just going to flatten out these edges to make a little triangle in this side seam is running right down the middle when we take a ruler to this we're going to measure up this triangle until we get to a point where we meet a four inch section so here's the one inch mark there's one two three four there's the other inch mark and i know you can't see that because this fabric's got a lot going on right that is exactly four inches from the edge of this fabric to the other edge and the seam should be running right down the middle we're going to just draw a line right there there is a little uh example in the instructions that show you this as well see that line we're going to pin that below the line and above the line just to keep everything situated now because i have pins in there and they poke my fingers i like to do this one corner at a time all right so i'm going to leave that just like that and set it over to the sewing machine we're going to do the same thing on one of the corners of the outside of the bag when skipping over the stars does it leave a hole on the pocket a very very tiny uh hole remind me marian when we flip this right side out to show you but it's very insignificant and uh yeah i'm not too much worried about it you can almost see it if i cut these jump stitches what kind of holes that it would leave right that's where we uh skipped one of the elements on the pocket this is where we skipped one right there right here in this corner we skipped a section this is where the stars were right there and i'm really not worried too much about that all right same way we're going to reach our hand in and just squeeze this bag down until that seam is running right down the middle this one with the blue jeans is going to feel a little bit more awkward plus i have pockets and applique on mine so that seam is just running right down the middle we're going to take our ruler and we're going to move it up that seam is running right down the middle and we're going to move this up until we meet the four inch mark from side to side and we're going to just make a little line right there that's going to be our sewing line we're going to sew right on that line i'm going to pin above it and below it alright so let's go take care of these two corners here's the first one when we start sewing let's do a back stitch at the beginning and the end of this part let me raise that needle and put you in the middle there we go do our little back stitch scissors and we're going to set that aside that's our first corner we're going to bring over the body of the bag we're going to do the same exact thing you're using denim you might have some thickness right in the seam area just slow down and go a little bit slower so here's our first two corners we're going to take a pair of scissors take these pins out we're going to cut away this extra portion in this corner right but we're going to leave ourselves about a quarter of an inch seam allowance and just trim off that corner like that we're going to do that for both the outside and the lining and a trim now we're going to go over to the other corner right because there's two corners in each one of these sections we're going to do the same thing we're just going to put our hand right in there flatten that right on out make sure that seam is running right up in the middle and we're going to measure up four inches and draw our line and pin i like to pin both below and above that line just kind of keeps that section together right we're going to do the same thing for the body of the bag we're going to push this corner out this is the one that's a little bit more awkward because of the applique in pockets but we're just gonna show it whose boss and flatten it down that seam again is running right down the middle and we're coming up four inches y'all i said i want to be a bag maker when i grow up i really do a couple years ago at the mid-atlantic quilt festival i bought a pattern for a cross over uh it was like a kind of bag was that it was a crossover bag but it had all kinds of pockets and zippered pockets and all kinds of really cool stuff i have not touched that pattern since i haven't even opened it up yet it's beyond my level of bag making so it's a little intimidating this is more my level of bag making we're going to bring this back to the sewing machine and sew these two corners and that is box in the corners y'all all right pretty simple right it feels a little awkward at first especially with the denim because the denim is thicker [Music] again you might want to go slow right in this mid section where those seams are and don't forget to backstitch and we have successfully boxed star corners of our bag again totally optional you don't have to do that part and we're cutting these corners off leaving about a quarter of an inch now this lining we're going to set this aside remember this is right side right side in or wrong side out we're going to leave it this way do not turn the the right side out on your lining okay leave it just like this and set this aside this is the outside portion of your bag at this point you can go ahead and turn this part right side out i'm just going to reach in now uh so yeah right side out i was getting ahead of myself this bag is going to be so dang cute my nana would have loved it because her favorite colors were red and i think she would have just loved this bag i'm just reaching in and poking out those corners see that that's where we boxed our corners that's going to give us a flat bottom to our bag right isn't that adorable just with my fingers poking out those corners look at the pockets on my bag oh my gosh that is just adorable okay so we have the front and we have the lining made i see another little stitch that i could trim right here now we're going to move on to the handles which i've already made one to kind of speed things up right already made one so let's set this aside with the right side out i have all this stuff everywhere i can move some of this out of the way there we go i don't think we need that we're going to move in the stuff for the handles now let me just give you a reclaimer the denim handles are a little bit heavy and so if you did not stabilize the body portion of your bag your handles are gonna droop and i'm trying to find here we go let me show you because if you haven't made this yet you can really consider if this is something that's important to you or not see the top of this bag the denim handles there's two handles are heavy and so when i set my bag up they want to droop over right i do think if i had some kind of closure in my bag it might help a little bit but see the weight of these handles they're a little heavy so you could and do the body portion of your bag out of denim like we just did with a fabric lining and instead of using denim for your handles use a coordinating fabric to your lining and make your handles from fabric instead of denim right you could do that but i already have one handle made right here we're going to make this other handle together so i have two strips of fusible interfacing again this is the pellon p44f very lightweight interfacing and we're going to fuse that onto the back side of our denim so here's two strips that are four inches wide of blue jeans oh i had a hole in my jeans that we are going to first sew together because uh cutting sections from your jeans i just don't know that you're going to have a section that's long enough that's why i say to cut four and join them to join them together so the first thing i'm going to do is sew two of these sections together with a half inch seam allowance we're going to make one long strip for our handles okay and i'm just going to do that even without switching just going to sew one quick seam that's just joining these two longer sections together and we're gonna press this seam open as soon as the iron warms up so now we have a great big long four inch strip right i'm going to open up that seam and just finger press it flat and we will press that thank you all so much for hanging out with me today oh sheila said you could also use a product like soft and stable to give your bag more body yes yo this is a super super beginner friendly bag pattern right um i like to make quilted totes too so maybe we'll cover one of those in the next couple of weeks but the quilted totes is much like what sheila said it adds some body to your bag so it really sits up you know nice and pretty this one's more like a slouchy bag without the extra support right i'm gonna steam this and fog up the camera for a second just to get this seam laying nice and flat ooh that's pretty all right with our interfacing it has a bumpy side that's the adhesive so we want to put the bump beside toward the back side of our denim for our straps right you will have to overlap these uh just to get the length that we need right we're gonna center that right in the middle of our four inch strap i'm just eyeballing it but you kind of want it centered right in there so that you have a good half inch on both sides and i like to press mine or cover mine with a pressing cloth so that i can use some steam i'm going to press this interfacing on oh darius says the joanne's has the pelon soft and stable on sale right now 1.99 a yard nice all right we're going to diffuse this interfacing what did i do with all of my interfacing all the way to the end i had two pieces the four inch denim strips are longer than my interfacing but i know i have 40 inches of interfacing here and our straps are not going to be that long if you like longer straps you could use the whole thing right i like to cut my straps at about 29 inches and that's for me i'm trying to oh there it is i think the the length of your strap is really a personal choice right some people like longer straps you might like shorter scrap strap i'm cutting mine at 29 inches long so i will have some denim at the end that we're not using you can just overlap this pellon and i kind of want the seam of where i piece these straps together in the middle of my strap you don't have to what stitch length do you use to sew on denim uh right now i'm using a 2.4 that's what i pieced these two strips with but when i sewed the pockets on earlier i increased the stitch length because there was considerably more denim going underneath that needle so i moved it up to a 3.0 again that could vary from machine to machine right you might need to experiment with your own settings to see if that works for you we just have a little bit more to fuse in place [Music] all right i think we're done steaming up the camera for a second the next thing we're going to do is let's go ahead and measure this out and i know already it's not going to all fit in the camera but i'm just going to use this other strap as a measuring guide because i've already pre-cut it to 29 inches we're just going to cut our strap to the length we want it there we go all right so with the exposed seam not right over available of that interfacing and pressing all the way down you can kind of feel a little edge there even though this is a lightweight fusible you kind of feel where the edge is which makes the folding over pretty easy we're just folding that right on over that gives you about half an inch to fold over the thickness of the denim in that fold is going to eat up just a smidgen that's why i say about half an inch yes the uh the sewing machine that is in my etsy shop it's actually called the sewing of the mini sewing machine quilt or what's the name of that marion was right it's in my etsy shop it's the sewing mug rug and there's actually two files because i updated it so if you've already gotten this go back because i updated it with the larger applique for this tote but i thought what else you could do with that larger sewing machine is make some pillows but not be so cute once you get one side done you're just going to come back and do the other side the same way [Music] we're scooting over scooting over vicki says she doesn't have a cell phone so she misses out on the sales at joann's just to let you know vicky if you go in and you sign up with them they also send you mailers now i can't guarantee that your mailer is going to come in time because my last mailer came in time but the mailer before that when i got it everything was all of their sales all of the coupons were expired i think the mailer must have got lost in the mail or got hung up somewhere but it was about a month late but they will send you mailers as well so if you don't have a cell phone the next time you go in joanne's ask them how to get the mailers sent to your house all right so we folded over the half inch on both sides one more thing to do is to fold this over right in half and we're matching up these two folded ends like that and we're pressing i'm going to leave that on there for a second so that i can show you that that instructions have been here too right how to box the corners of the bag how to make the straps how to fold over onto the interfacing and then press the next thing we're going to do is we're going to take this to the sewing machine and sew down both sides and i'll show you that in just a second but everything i'm showing you is also written in the instructions i like to use a little steam [Music] especially with this denim you might not need to steam it if you're using regular fabric but i like to steam it with the denim there will be one thick seam right in the middle on my strap that's where we join the two sections so when we're sewing the two lines we'll just go really slow in that section again using a larger needle might be really helpful for you and press all the way down the total length of your strap then we're going to let that cool off for a second we're going to bring it back to the sewing machine we're going to be sewing right close to the edge right we want to make sure that when we sew it we're catching the seam allowance right so you don't have to go right next to the edge maybe an eighth or a quarter inch seam allowance would be great we're going to sew all the way down one side and then to make it uniform we're going to sew back down the other side that's going to give our strap a really nice look to it and finish it off really nice and pretty you might want to increase your stitch length at this point especially if you're using the denim whoops there we go we're gonna let this cool off for one second genie you made it i showed your bag at the beginning i showed your lovely bag at the beginning y'all for those of you who um sell on etsy maybe you have a website where you sell your handmade items maybe you do craft fairs and bender malls uh maybe you do local markets maybe you sell on facebook marketplace this bag i know uh i'm kind of slowing down the process a lot during the live talking and stuff like that but once you make this bag once or twice you're gonna really get the hang of it it's going to go together really quick but look really nice and you can customize these bags so for those of you who sell your items your handmade items customizing this bag to sell would be like a really good idea if you have an embroidery machine you could do monograms you could do heat transfer vinyl monograms all kinds of stuff but this bag relatively goes together really quick oh sally said this the strap is a great place to use the decorative stitches yes all right i'm going to go let's move this over some again i increased my stitch length to a 3.0 especially on one side where we have the four layers of denim in that fold it's gonna help feed it through the machine a little bit easier this is the side where we have our opening right this stitch is going to close off that opening we won't have to turn our strap right side out so i kind of love that here's the seam where we joined our two pieces of denim i'm going to go nice and slow i'm not worried about doing a backstitch at the beginning and the end because the raw edges are going to be sewn into the top of the bag so we're just going to flip this right over and come back down the other side oh my gosh i'm so excited about the pockets on the front of this i just saw it out of the corner of my eye here's that same we're gonna go nice and slow my line because i don't do long long seams very straight and i'm going pretty quick is a little wavy like this i'm using a thread that just kind of blends in so if you have long wavy lines like me use a thread that blends into your handle right if you stay nice and straight with long seams then you could pick a contrasting thread as like a decorative element of your strap you don't want to look too close at my stitch lines on the straps because they're going to be wavy the good news is you don't too much see it because of the thread that i picked out see that all right so you would do the exact same steps for the other strap okay i've already pre-done the other strap to save some time in today's video right so we have two straps two strips i can move this over some take a breath hold on a second lisa slow down sometimes i just go go go and then i'm like oh i forgot to do this okay so why the yarn on the inside is the sewing machine why the yarn on the inside is the sewing machine yes let me bring you i did some hand stitching on my sewing machine let's revisit that for a second i used a dmc embroidery thread i did not separate the layer so there's like six strands of thread how many is it six or eight something like that and one uh piece of dmc thread i just left it the way it comes and uh i did a back stitch for the sewing line of my sewing machine isn't that cute so you do see that on the inside of the bag but the lining is gonna gonna cover that now i was feeling quite adventurous and i started to do a hand stitch for all my applique and i quickly uh quickly let go of that aspiration and did a blanket stitch by machine to sew the fabric down but i did accent it with a back stitch isn't that so cute in case you just joined us this is going to be the front of my bag with little pockets oh we can go ahead and leave this out because we're going to do the handles next let me cut some of these strings off yes jam you'll have to come back whatever you uh miss you can come back on the replay to catch all right so let's go ahead and put the straps onto the bag i think the biggest uh important thing to pay attention to when adding the straps is to make sure they're not twisted when you when you put them on make sure that uh they just loop over and they're not twisted right so there's our handles i like to measure my handles about two inches over from the side again i kind of feel like that that's a personal preference i don't know that there's a set rule but i like my handles to come over about two inches from the edge of the bag right so let's measure over two inches from the edge of the bag actually i'm not going to even mark it i'm just going to place the edge of my handle right at that two edge mark you'll notice that the raw edge of the handle is going to come past the top raw edge of the bag just a smidgen not too much to make any difference in the length of the handle and let's make sure it's running straight and i'm gonna just put some pins in there like this and like this and because i want that to stay nice and straight i'm gonna come right here and just pin this i have a tendency by the time i make it to the sewing machine my handles get added in like this and then i wonder why the why it doesn't hang right right we needed to make sure that it stays nice and straight to the edge of the bag we're going to measure over two inches and line up the second side throw some pins in there and we're going to do the same exact thing on the other side all right so let's flip it over let's make sure our strap is not twisted measure over two inches and pin it nice and straight i took all my pins off over here thank you sharon sometimes i don't see all the comments and i usually have to come back in the evening and read everything but thank you i miss so much of the chat until later on all right don't twist your handle lisa there we go let's measure over two inches on this side there's two inches make sure it's nice and straight lisa there we go and pin this one now this is going to come in really handy for those of you who uh can remove part of your sewing machine to expose the free arm of your sewing machine right i'll show you what that means here in just a second but that's going to come in really handy because we're going to bring this to the sewing machine now i'm just going to do a top stitch over each one of these little ends right that's all i'm going to do with the sewing machine we're just going to do like a stay stitch for these handles so we can take these pins out so on my sewing machine see this little section right here i'm going to just take this table off for a minute oh i hope i don't have any dust bunny situations going on underneath of here if i do y'all just ignore that for a second but see now i have the free arm of my machine open oh i was looking for that all right we're to bring this bag in and i'm going to just stick part of the bag right underneath of that free arm and i'm just going to do a straight stitch right close to the edge maybe about an eighth of an inch in or even a quarter of an inch in we will be sewing this up at the top here in just a little while with a half inch seam allowance so as long as you stay within a half inch seam allowance you're good your stitches won't show i will be doing a back stitch at the beginning and the ends too close to the edge lisa go in some the good news is you won't see this part i'll skip over to the next handle oh now we're going to flip it over to the other side and stitch down those have an easier time seeing if my needle's in the middle there we go the stitch length i'm using for this is a 3.0 [Music] you got quite a few layers of denim going underneath of there oh no i messed up not on my straps but on my lining and i'll tell you why i just thought of it the joys of going live let me take these pins out and then i'll show you something so there's our straps with a stay stitch so we can take these pins out and they're not going to go anywhere we have to revisit the lining revisiting the lining all right so there's the outside of our bag our handles are attached let's bring in that that lining one more time because we were supposed to leave an opening lisa the instructions tell you to leave an opening but i got so excited i sewed the whole thing let me show you where this opening is supposed to be and it just crossed my mind on the first page underneath of all the things that you need for this tote right there's the two squares the outside lining the outside portion of your bag you sew completely on both sides of the bag and along the bottom but the lining you're supposed to leave an opening on the side okay so you start sewing you back stitch you jump down you back stitch and you keep on sewing all the way around i forgot to leave my opening so now we're going to have to pick that open we need to have an opening here lisa so let me just pick these stitches while and it would be really helpful if i had a back stitch to keep these locked but i'm just going to create a little opening so we can flip everything right side out at the end but y'all we're getting close to having this bag together i'd say pardon me a four or five inch opening works really nicely i'm just going to cut some of these stitches because i was just so excited to start sewing did i just sewed up everything let's see there we go see that opening i'm going to make it a little bit bigger and then i am going to bring this to the sewing machine and do a little back stitch here and here to lock that in place because i don't want to make the opening really big i just want it about 4 inches all of that bag has to fit through this hole and if you were following along with the tutorial and you sewed this i am so sorry the only thing i can guarantee is it won't be the only time that i mess up during any of my tutorials there we go i think that's a good size opening let me just bring it over i'm going to back stitch right here and right here because i don't want that opening spreading right i want it to stay stay about four or five inches so i'm just going to go right where that stitching is we're going to create a new back stitch right there see that just lock that stitching in and we'll jump up here to this other side and lock that stitching in so now that opening is not going to just open up all the way whoopsies yeah isn't that lining fabric so pretty it really is all right so at this point our lining is still wrong side out right we have not flipped the lining yet we're going to take the body of the bag that is right side out right there's our handles they're sewn in and attached we're taking this whole thing and we're fitting it down inside the lining like this like that and i want you to reach over to the side seams here's the side seam on the lining we're going to match it up to the side seam on the outside of the bag that's where we're going to start first we're going to match up those seams and i'm going to throw a pin in there you could use the binding clips if you want right so there's both side seams we're going to open it up reach over to the other side seam and match those up right there both sides seems i'm going to throw a pin right there and now we can start binding clipping the edge or pinning the edge as many as you feel is necessary to keep everything on that raw edge lined up right just matching up the top of both of those pieces like that how's our internet doing is it holding up and like that so that's one side that's pinned i'll flip it over because i think it's easier for you to see and we will pin this side as well now i still have the table off of my sewing machine bed right the free arm will be a lot easier to do this next portion as well yay maybe the internet has got its act together all right so once you've pinned that raw edge all the way around the top right we're going to go back to the sewing machine and i want you to set up a half inch seam allowance for this part okay we're going back and forth with that seam allowance today we're going to bring this bag over and we're sewing completely around we're not leaving an opening we're going to sew completely around the top of this bag again i like to do a back stitch at the beginning and the end just to lock everything in place you can start on the side if you want i'm just starting right here in the middle take a couple stitches and then back up with your pins in there you might not want to sew over the pins or just be really careful when you get to those straps there's some thickness in there right there's the end of our strap and i'm just rotating this bag right around that free arm sewing a little bit and then rotating around i do have a 3.0 stitch length as my stitch for this because at some portions we are sewing through the straps which are kind of thick but it does allow a little forgiveness when sewing over these pins if you're using a shorter seam allowance stitch length you might want to not sew over the pins right that pin is actually getting ready to fall out doing that stay stitch on your handles before we got here really helps keep those handles in place during all of this moving and shifting oh look i found some gum underneath my sewing machine who knows what you're gonna find underneath of there all right we're back to where we started again i'm going to do another little back stitch and separate that from the sewing machine look what i found a little treat for later oh who knows how long that's been there okay all right so we can take all these pins out now you want to make sure you take all those out before you flip this and try to use your bag all the way around we're ready to flip all right so we're going to find that opening right there in the lining and we're reaching inside and we're just pulling the outside of the bag right through that opening that's one of the reasons why i like to leave a good four or five inches because if you're like me and you put pockets and other stuff on your bag plus you got the straps all of that coming through that opening oh that's going to be so pretty and then we're going to continue flipping the lining right so you might need to put your hands inside that opening we're going to flip out the corners where we box them on that lining as well see that go ahead and poke out those corners while you have that opening nice and pretty poked out corners and while your lining is still out we want to come in and close up this opening right so there's the opening of our lining right there you can just give that a quick little press and i'm going to do a top stitch right close to that seam because that's super easy and fast for me but you could always hand sew this closed if you want right i'm just making sure those seams are turned give me a nice little finished edge on this opening i will press it and then we're going back to the sewing machine not for the last time we've still got one more thing that i like to do i'm just going to do a little top stitch right there for this i can put the uh bit of the machine back on hide all my goodies under there you can pin this opening if you want i'm just going to bring it right on over and sew right close to that edge so now we won't lose things in the middle of our bag between the lining i had a bag i had a purse that the lining got a hole in and i was missing stuff all the time and that's when i realized there was a hole in the lining so once you've closed up that lining we're just stuffing it right inside our bag and it goes down poke that lining down into your box corners like that and then what you might find helpful is to go through and start situating this seam right see that lining in the top of our bag i'm just going to go through and start kind of finger pressing that right along that top edge just situating it if you have an ironing board that has the little tippy part of the iron it might be helpful to use that what i like to do is go through and press this top seam because we're going to bring this bag back to the sewing machine one more time and i think i left this out of the instructions but i like to do a little top stitch around the top of this bag i don't think that's mentioned in the instructions but i like to do that so we do need the table of the machine off still this pressing part again does go by easier if you have that ironing board where you can just fit this body right over top of that you know right over that pointy part i just like to press it see how we're just kind of making that lining behave right inside that bag right it's really kind of awkward to do on a pressing board versus an ironing board there we go i think that's pretty good at least for video purposes we're going back to the sewing machine one last time and i do have to take this off there we go because i think you'll find it way easier i like to do a little top stitch right along i will start on the side seam for this one right along the edge of the opening of our bag right and uh let's see we will go quarter of an inch away from the top the stitch length is still set at 3.0 we're just going to do this all the way along the edge of our bag that's also going to reinforce our handles or our straps right just make them a little bit stronger i have a seam there so i'm just going really slow fading that through here's another seam we're going to go nice and slow over that one move my gum out of the way rotating the bag around as we go i'm reaching in and making sure that that lining is not accidentally folded up some right just making sure that lining is behaving underneath of there because i didn't press it too because pressing that on the pressing board is not that easy i'm just making sure that the lining isn't poking up beyond that raw edge too much you know there's another seam and we're coming right back to where we started i'm going to pass where we started because i did not do a back stitch there i'm going to pass where we started and then just do a couple little back stitches and that is it y'all i say that is it that's a lot of steps to do but that is making that simple

Channel: Lisa Capen Quilts

Views: 10,428

Keywords: denim tote, beginner tote bag sewing, beginner tote bag tutorial, beginner tote bag, upcycled denim jeans, upcycled denim dress, upcycled denim tote, recycled denim, recycled denim bags and purses, recycled denim projects, easy tote bag sewing tutorial, easy tote bag tutorial, easy tote bag crochet, lisa capen, lisa capen quilts, lisa capen quilts youtube

Id: VsKRYpVIPGY

Length: 112min 50sec (6770 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021