Cath Kidston for my teen

After seeing the bag I made for lil' roo, my beautiful teen asked me to make her the bag that came free with Cath Kidston's 'Sew' book. After tweaking the design to include lining, a pocket and a zip (necessary as the beautiful teen is always loosing something - the handbag is to replace one she lost a few weeks ago with all her make-up in! Needless to say I am not replacing the make-up!), I am pleased with the outcome.
I will briefly explain what i did with a few pics as I am always disappointed when I look on blogs and see fantastic ideas and adaptations of other designs and no hints of how to recreate it. So here goes, my first mini tutorial:
First, I chose a fabric for the lining and cut this to the same pattern as the main bag fabric. I had seen a blog of how to use the facing pieces to make a pocket by Cotton Kiwi, and it worked perfectly! I also decided to sew the Cath Kidston label on at this stage due to using lining and I did not want the stitches to show through.
Using a zip four inches longer than the top is wide, I pinned the fabric and lining to the zip and did a running stitch as close to the zip as I could (I don't have a zipper foot for my vintage sewing machine).
I don't have a picture of this as I was not planning on writing a mini tutorial but will try to explain and then post about zips later if requested...I lay the zip down, face up, and take one of the main fabric pieces laying it on the zip right side face down, pinning the top of the fabric to the top edge of the zip. Then I turn the zip over and do the same with the lining. I then sew tightly (1/4 to 1/2 cm) to the zipper and flip the fabrics to their right sides and sew top stitch to hold. I then repeat this with the other side. I hope that helps.

I then made up the lining and the main bag pieces as explained in the book - leaving a small gap (3 inches) in the side of the lining to turn it right way out.
When I got to this point, I thought that it makes quite a nice handmade wash bag or makeup bag for those of us who have enough handbags.

And because of this thought I decided to push down the zipper from the top into the bag by one and a half inches and iron the folds. I then top stitched around the bag near the top edge and then further down nearer the zipper.

I never want to waste even an incy tincy piece of fabric so I used the button hole piece to make a zipper tag then just followed the instructions for the the strap and buttons.





My beautiful teen was very pleased! And the replacement bag only cost me a couple of Good British Pounds for the lining to make - so I was very pleased too!

Other than that this week has been all good food and warm evenings = bliss!
Thanks for reading :)