The sunray bag - part 3, completed

My sunray clutch bag is complete at last.

Having made the bag lining and the semi-rigid bag former, the next job was to make up the outer. The bag front and back were joined together with a base strip of the patterned cotton. However, the lowest sun 'ray' had been designed to overlap the base a little, so that the orange continued right to the edge. Then one side of the bag, made from a strip of the plain orange cotton, was sewn in place. (All of the sewing for this week's post was done by hand, and I now have the slightly throbbing fingertips to prove it!)

Showing the base, and the orange side

Once the orange side was sewn in, the bag outer was arranged over the bag former, to see how well it fitted. The other side, made from the print fabric, had to be attached further out than I had expected. Fortunately I had left very generous seam allowances everywhere, just in case.

The yellow thread basting shows the original expected sewing line

The print side was completely sewn to the bag front, but only to the lower half of the bag back - this was so that the former could be slipped into position.

Attaching the print side

To hold everything in place, the seam allowances were stitched onto the cotton layer of the former. Adding the cotton turned out to have been an inspired move - not bad for someone who was making it up as she went along!

Interior shot showing the seam allowances whipped in place

I stitched the upper side edge of the bag back to the former, and then joined the side to the back using ladder stitch. Next, I folded over the top edges of the bag and sewed them to the former. Finally, I turned under the upper edge of the lining, and sewed that onto the outer with tiny overcast stitches.

Top view, closed and open

And here is the completed bag, front and back.

Front view

The back, with the design machine-sewn on

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and I learned a lot in the process of making it. So I'm counting it as a win for both the 'details' and the 'self-drafted' goals that I set myself mid-year. Oh, and it used up some stash fabric as well.

I seem to be using stash rather than the listed fabrics