How To Make The Magic Tote Bag ~Fabric Manipulation~ The Waves of Lake Erie Tote Bag

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments
Captions
hi friends traci here from the sewing channel welcome back and if you're new here welcome today's tutorial is mostly about fabric manipulation now there are all kinds of ways to manipulate fabric just do a quick search on google and you could find a few of these techniques tons of fabric manipulation tricks tips techniques all kinds of things years ago when i first started quilting i came up with a technique that i wanted to use on a quilt that i was doing i ended up not using the technique in the quilt and i went a totally different way so i was going through some of my old sewing stuff and i came across this now before i made this into a cushion it was just a test piece of fabric that i was working on at the time and i never ended up using the cushion i just shoved it away somewhere and figured well i'll revisit that again in another day this week ended up being another day for me i absolutely love this fabric manipulation now i haven't seen anything quite like it online and i don't follow patterns at all i'm a terrible pattern follower i make things up as i go as they make sense to me and a lot of times patterns just don't make sense to me now the reason i didn't end up using this in my quilt project years ago was because it's a lot of work but for a tote bag it's doable it's been so long since i've seen this that i even had to unpick this and go in and see what the heck did i do there today's fabric manipulation into the magic tote bag seems to be intermediate to advanced but i don't want you to be intimidated by this technique get some scrap fabric if you're a beginner and just give it a try let's clear one thing up real quick this right here is not a real dog on my shirt i'm not holding a dog nope in one of my videos when i wore this sweater a lot of people thought that i was literally holding a dog it's not real guys i i kid you not it's not real i do have some grand dogs but not real enough talking already let's get busy learning something new get ready to take a screenshot of the fabric you will need for today's fabric manipulation magic tote bag just like you would do with a quilt project you're going to lay out all of your pieces in the manner that you would like to see them on your finished product just keep in mind that this will be folded in half so that you don't have you know like colors touching light colors here i did more of a red and blue red and blue type sequence now we're going to piece those rows together just like we would in a quilt project and i'm going to use a quarter inch seam allowance after i've connected each piece at the sewing machine i do quickly finger press as i go right at the sewing machine this is what you should have so far all three of those rows that have the five inch pieces in it those should be all connected now what we're going to do is iron the seam allowance to one side now it doesn't matter which side on this particular project now it would matter if you were making a quilt but for this no worries just go ahead and iron it to whatever side you feel like at the moment are you loving my tiny tabletop ironing board go ahead click the link in the top right hand corner and check out that tutorial for this project we are going to start from the bottom and work our way up so what we're going to do is take those two bottom rows and connect them together being sure that that white strip does still remain the bottom of our project make sure everything is nice and even and pop a few pins in there and then we are going to take it over to the sewing machine and we are going to do a quarter inch seam allowance all the way down the edge where it is pinned this is what you should have so far those two pieces are connected with that quarter inch seam allowance you're going to open it up turn it over and iron everything to the colored side of the fabric just like you see me do right here after you have set the seam with a hot press you're then going to fold in half with wrong sides together focusing on that edge where the seam is you're going to put a nice hot press right in there you may have to take your fingers and roll that seam to the very edge being sure that one color is on one side and one on the other just like you see me do here and that hot crease is very important to be putting in there it will definitely help us when we get over to the sewing machine to sew the top stitch on once you've put a hot press in the one side of the fold you are then going to flip it over and do the other colored side and just give it a nice hot press all the way down with those two rows still folded go ahead and take it over to the sewing machine and sew a quarter inch top stitch all the way down just like you see me doing right here you will be able to see this top stitch thread in the final project so you may want to make it pop out more with a different color or make it more invisible within your fabric choice this is what you should have so far this seam sort of reminds me of a reverse french seam with a twist just to keep everything nice and flat i open it up and sort of with my hands just slide kind of glide down the fabric finger pressing so to speak but the next step is going to be to add that next white row onto that colored row so we're just going to flip it over right sides together and we're going to do the same exact thing that we just did to those first two rows but now just incorporating it into the next row so a quarter inch seam allowance all the way down connecting those two fabrics together then pressing the seam allowance to one side then folding them to wrong sides and pressing in that nice crease and top stitching it after that this is what you should have so far after you've done all those steps here's a good look at the back what it should look like and then again the front and you're going to just strip by strip keep adding those on just in the same sequence of steps that you just did a tip i would like to give you when adding on the colored fabrics that have the seam in them try to make sure that they are lined up with the seam in the row just before it because we will be putting a line of stitching through those seams so we do want to make sure that you are somewhat on point so to speak looking good this is what you should have after four rows of attachment i'm on row seven here right after i stitch the two fabrics together and as you see i'm just going through the same sequence again and again and then i'm going to get ready and do my top stitch here once i get that crease all nice and pressed this is the last row that i'm working on here and i'm just going to go through that same exact sequence of steps i could totally see this on a quilt this technique i mean it would be so unique i've never seen anything like this on a quilt let me know down in the comments though if i'm wrong i'm just i'm not sure that i've ever seen it but you could swap out and put the that white muted color as your five inch pieces and make a bunch of very subdued colors and make the long strip one busy fabric there's just so many ways that you could literally do this project this is what you should have when all of the pieces are connected in the technique that i showed you earlier before we add any backing or fabric onto this piece of fabric that we just created we are going to just tack down in two separate spots right where you see me pointing there on each of those spaces where there is a seam between the color you don't need to pin it because those two sides will come down pretty easily and i will show you here at the sewing machine now this part may seem tedious to you because i do cut my threads after every single tack down that i do and that's because i don't want to go straight across that seam just yet i only want to see one stitch in the ditch there in the end and that's why i prefer to do that and also for this technique to tack those down it will be much easier for us when we go to sew our batting and the backing onto this piece of fabric hopefully this technique will make sense to you here by the end of this tutorial after all of those areas are all nicely tacked down you should have something that looks just like this you can see the pretty fabric there peeping out amongst the white there that we had just tacked down now it's time to add our fusible batting onto the back of this fabric that we just made there should be a bumpy side on that fusible batting i think it's fleece actually fusible fleece yeah so what you're going to do is just go ahead with your hot iron and just try to iron that fleece onto the back of this fabric the best that you can and it does take quite a bit of pressure and heat because we've got a lot of thickness here going on with this piece that we just made so just take your time and iron that on it's important to note that your batting or fusible fleece whatever you decide to use it should be bigger on all sides than your fabric that you just made and here i'm just using a pressing cloth on the back so that i can be assured that there's heat coming from all sides now you're going to pick the inside of your bag fabric and cut that just so that it's about the same as that front fabric or just a little bit bigger and you're going to lay that on top of that fleece with right side facing out now i did have to sew a seam on that inner fabric because i didn't have one long enough to fit so you can do that as well if you'd like now since my batting only had one side that had the fusible part i'm going to go ahead and put a bunch of pins to baste all of that together now what i want you to note here is that i am pinning just off to the side of where the seam is on the colored pieces of five inch fabric that we sewed in there because when i end up sewing this together i want to sew down that area and so i don't want my pin to be in the way if you're one that likes to skip steps i wouldn't want to skip this step right here because you don't want your back fabric to shift and be anywhere else but where it needs to be so the next step is to sew right along where i'm pointing at the top of that white area all the way down through to the bottom area of where that bottom seam is and i'll show you here on my sewing machine so here i did backstitch at the beginning of that very top white seam that we initially made and now i'm just going to go right through the white and on down through to the next seam and then i'm also going to back stitch at the very end now each line should look something just like this right here the line just straight through that's it and you're going to do that on all of the same areas after you get all these sewn down in those same areas then you will be able to take your pins out this is what it looks like on the back with those lines and now we're going to go ahead and take all the pins out and get ready for the next step here is just a little preview of what it will look like once we get our stitches in place next take your favorite marking tool and go ahead and find the middle of each of those colored fabrics and you're going to draw a line straight down through the white and the other colored fabrics next take it to the sewing machine and sew a row of stitches down that line opening the top seam and the bottom seam of each of those colored fabrics this is my favorite part of the whole project you just sew a straight line lifting up and just going right over top of that seam area and it opens up this beautiful fabric that is almost inlaid looking to me anyways here also you can utilize a different color thread to either make something pop or to minimize a certain color if you didn't sew the side area yet straight down go ahead and do that now i didn't the first time around so i'm going to do it now and then go down the center and open up my fabric areas let me know down in the comments what you think of the way that i manipulated the fabric today on our tote bag i would really love to hear your comments and feedback on that so this is what you should have so far oh my word it looks so good i really do love this technique i've been debating on what to call my technique today on my tote bag i think i've decided on the waves of lake erie i mean i do live by the lake and i use nautical fabric so you know now it's time to square up our tote bag fabric go ahead and cut all four sides nice and square go ahead and fold it over and see how everything looks looking good and now we're going to add our bottom piece now we're adding a double-sided quilted fabric which is a reversible fabric now we're using this extra fabric because we're we're going to box the corners to the outside so with wrong sides together you're going to first sew a quarter inch seam allowance and when you're done with that you're going to flip it back to right sides together and encase that entire seam all the way down making it a french seam if it gets a little bulky on you like it did me go ahead and pin that encasement closed so that helps you at the sewing machine it did help me so go ahead and hot press it to one side that french seam because we're going to now put a top stitch on the outside of this bag all the way down right where you see me pointing and the inside should look like this after you have topstitched it take the top portion of the bag your fabric there and fold it in half and put a memory crease right down the center and set it aside for a second next you're going to measure and mark four spots on your tote bag where your handles are going to go if you don't know how to measure for handles i do go into more detail in my original magic tote bag two seam tote bag i'll link that video in the top right hand corner here and i will also link it at the end of this video and down in the description box it gives a lot more detail take your straps and go ahead and pin them right to your fabric where you marked for the center of your straps if you're lost right now and don't know what's happening you may need to go ahead and check out the magic 2 seam tote bag and it will make a whole lot more sense to you so this is what you should have so far exactly laying on your table just like it's laying on my table what we're going to do next is go ahead and open that top piece up that part that we folded and pressed a crease in with right side up and then with the wrong side of your tote bag you're going to lay that on top of that piece just like you see me do right here and what i'm doing is evening up all the edges you see me checking right there once the fabric edges are all even go ahead and unpin each of the strap areas and reuse that pin pinning everything together the strap the fabric the back fabric everything needs to be pinned together on all four of those straps the next thing you're going to do is take a hold of that bottom piece that we added on there and our entire quilt sandwich you're going to just keep rolling it up until it gets nice and tight toward close to the edge of that fabric where the pins are and then you're going to lift up and over that top portion and pin it and you're going to encase all the way down that entire quilt sandwich you're going to encase all of that in there within that top portion piece that we laid it on it's going to look kind of like a sausage they call it the burrito roll-up method and again you need to look back to the magic tote bag in order to see that entire video on this but this is essentially how it's done and once you get all the pins in there you are going to run it through your sewing machine with a quarter inch seam allowance take your time and just be sure to catch all the layers of that material within that seam allowance that you're sewing right now in this next step we are going to find out why the magic tote bag is called the magic tote bag you're going to turn that roll right side out pulling gently everything to the right side and then all of a sudden there you have it a nice beautiful top to our tote bag that has no exposed seams and everything is nice and encased hence the magic next give that top area a nice hot press i mean it is wrinkled it did come out of a sausage casing right so go ahead and just give it a good press even up the sides of the tote bag cutting off that top area and bottom area to match the sides of the tote bag now you're going to pin the straps nice and straight because we are going to top stitch those down onto the top of our tote bag reinforcing in like a rectangle shape so you're going to want to go ahead and do that next on your sewing machine i don't show that step but essentially that's what i did here you'll see they're not coming up so i did sew them down already fold it in half with wrong sides together go ahead and pin and then sew about an eighth to a quarter inch french seam down the side and along the bottom cut off any excess bulk that we don't want in our french seam off that's what i'm doing right now this is after i've sewn the first seam and then you're going to turn it inside out and go ahead and roll that seam to the very edge and then you're going to sew down the side and down the bottom encasing that seam making a french seam now because i was working with a lot of bulk you do see me pin that there along the edges and that really does help once the seam is in case go ahead and turn your tote bag right side out to make the outside boxed corner all you're going to do is just lift the tip the corner of that bag and lift it up to that that white area that's how far i brought mine up and then you're going to go ahead and put a pin right in it for now and then you're going to take the other side and you're going to lift it up the same amount that you did the other side and just pop a pin in it next i'm going to hand sew these beautiful brass buttons that i picked up at the goodwill in one of my goodwill thrift haul videos check it out link is in the top right hand corner right here now you can box the corners from the inside to make all of that hidden but since this was a nautical tight bag i think those brass buttons look so much better on the outside boxed out i absolutely love how this bag turned out i'm so glad i ended up making this bag using this technique let me know what you guys really think of this bag down in the comments below [Music] thank you for supporting my channel by subscribing and hitting the like button for this tutorial until next time on the sewing channel take care
Info
Channel: The Sewing Channel
Views: 12,571
Rating: 4.9582849 out of 5
Keywords: how to make the magic tote bag, magic tote bag, make the magic tote bag, lake erie wave tote bag, lake erie wave technique, fabric manipulation, lake erie tote bag, make the lake erie tote bag, the wave tote bag, fabric manipulation sewing technique, magic wave tote bag, the sewing channel magic tote bag, sewing channel wave technique, tote bag sewing tutorial, magic tote bag sewing tutorial, advanced sewing technique, how to sew the magic tote bag, Wave tuck tote bag
Id: t6mm82gxw4k
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 24min 29sec (1469 seconds)
Published: Sat Feb 27 2021
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.