Cloth Book Bag

Materials: Iron-on Repair Patch, $1.89

Time: 1.5 hours

This skirt was acquired during our last clothing swap. It was pretty cute, but too big for me. It took a lot of brainstorming, but I finally decided to turn it into a cloth or book-bag. The belt could be used as the straps and the zipper made into a pocket for keys or my cell phone.

I started off by chopping off the bottom. I turned the skirt inside out and sewed the outer fabric together making the bottom of the bag.

Then separately I did the same with the inner linning, leaving a small opening to reverse the bag back to the correct side.

 

 

 

Then I took the bottom part of the skirt and cut it in the shape of a pocket and sewed it together on either side of the zipper.

 

I reversed the bag and tied the two ends of the belt together to see the result. The bag turned out great, but it was a little flimsy. So I took iron-on repair patches and reinforced the bottom. Now the bag was too stiff to completely reverse the corners, so I stitched the corners perpendicular to the bottom stitching.

 

After reversing the bag I was absolutely thrilled! The final step was simply to hand stich the opening I left in the lining, and the bag was finished! Great for a quick trip to the store or the library with little B.