DIY summer bag from a bright old sweater

On the lemonsqueezyhome.com , we found a wonderful master class that tells in detail how to sew a beautiful bag from a sweater that has been gathering dust in the closet for a couple of years in a couple of hours.

Yes, you can, of course, hope that the opportunity will turn up and you will put on your favorite sweater with a hole in the sleeve in the forest for mushrooms, but a bag is still better!

Required: an old sweater (preferably machine knitted), lining fabric (coarse calico, cotton, linen) and interlining for dense fabrics. Fabrics and interlining take half a meter. You will need fabric for attaching handles, for example, the remains of contrasting thick silk. Wooden handles are sold in the sewing department.

We sew a bag measuring 30 by 40 cm (it is wider than it is tall). On the bottom and top we give an allowance of 1 cm (on the seams), on the sides of the bag - 3 cm each (2 cm on the volume + 1 cm on the seams). Therefore, we draw rectangles 32 cm by 46 m on the non-woven fabric. Cut it out.

Then we apply the non-woven blank to the lining and to the sweater, circle and cut out 2 rectangles from each of them. When working with a sweater, remember that the bottom of the sweater will be the top edge of the bag.

Fasten interlining and sweater in the form of a sandwich: interlining, sweater, sweater, interlining. You need to fold so that the interlining is in contact with the wrong side of the sweater. With a hot iron, go through the interlining on both sides. At a distance of 1 cm on the sides and bottom, draw a straight line along which the seam will go. Sew.

Then take care of the corners. First, expand the bag a little from the inside and stitch them as shown in the photo. Turn the bag right side out. Lightly unzip the seams.

Fasten the handles. For fasteners, use strips of silk 5 cm long, select the width for the purchased handles. The width depends on the size of the handles (the fabric should drape slightly in the grooves of the handles).

Fasteners should drape in the grooves of the handles. Each strip must be stitched along the edge, folded with the right side inward, and then turned inside out and ironed.

Thread the ribbons through the slots and attach them to the top edge of the bag from the front.

Take care of the lining. Fold the cut out rectangles right sides inward and sew along the dotted lines, leaving a gap along the bottom edge. We will turn the bag through it, so leave enough space for the handles to crawl through.

Place the lining, without turning it inside out, over the bag with the pinned handles. Now fasten all the layers with safety pins and stitch the entire top edge, sewing on the handles.