Fold-up shopping bag (summer sewing camp starts!)

 Finally. The longest school year ever has come to an end. For the first time since 2019 we taught in the school all the way through June AND we went as late as we possibly can (finishing June 30 with students!). But kudos to the students who kept showing up and engaging with the tasks we provided!

And then I got to work. This month I will do a bit of a focus on slippery projects (as well as my other projects). I am hosting this month's pop-up sew-along at Pattern Review on slippery shifty fabrics. So my first project (in the informal queue in my head) was to make another upcycled shopping bag from an out-of commission umbrella my dad had given me.

My other slippery projects are the blouse with a twist front (already cut out from fabric in stash), and the special-occasion outfit from the shot-silk jacquard.

HBC prototype

So first up: the umbrella bag. I am including instructions for how to make it. (Linking a pdf) The bag itself is about the size of a standard plastic grocery bag. This umbrella, as can be seen, was red and black, so it is easy to see where the seams are. I just use the umbrella pieced as it is; I don't worry about those seams

I first made this bag a few years ago from a memento umbrella. I modelled it on a bag purchased from HBC, a bag which is so practical. It is light and takes up no room, and is always in my purse. I bought a couple more from a flea maraket, and while they were cute, they were not as practical. After some time I realized why: my original bag has an opening wide enough to carry the bag over your shoulder, whereas these other ones did not. 

And when the umbrella died, I really wanted to do something with the fabric, and this was it.

Funnily, I had lost the bag I had made, and was a bit sad, but found it deep in my desk when I as doing my end of year clean up! Yay. I had to redraft the pattern.

The main challenge is how shifty the umrella nylon can be. I recently learned that using a rotary cutter on slippy fabrics is better than scissors because you don't lift the fabric away, so it stays put while cutting!

When I sewed my first seam I had trouble keeping it straight, so I used the walking foot which worked perfectly - except for where I was stitching close to the edge.

I am hoping to make two bags out of this umbrella (looking iffy, though), so to preserve fabric I just did the same as I had before for the handles, and they are not doubled -they are each a single thickness. The hems for those were hard to make look nice (so they don't!); it was hard to fold over the edges nicely on those curves. I recommend doubling it, if you can.

One instruction that is not on the instruction sheet is to add a snap if you like, or velcro to keep the pocket flap closed. Fold it up to see where to place the snaps.

Here are the photos to go with folding instructions. Notice that you place the pocket-side down, and fold in by thirds, so that it is now the same width as the pocket.

Then you fold down the handles.

Then fold up in half, then half again.

 The trickiest part is folding it all into the pocket; it might take a few tries to get it right!

My hope is to keep this blog updated throughout the summer with one or two projects per week. Stay tuned to my own personal summer sewing camp!