D48: Triangle bag

I found this a few days ago in my feed via Makezine website. It's an excellently simple bag made from a 1:3 rectangle. It's designer calls it a triangle bag and you can see why. The tutorial I used is at between the lines by Pascale.

My triangle bag!

I wanted something that would fit into a day, but it wasn't as quick as I'd hoped. Fifteen minutes, suggested Pascale.  Hmmm, I thought, is dinner already made...?

Measuring it out.  It's much too long. It should be 45cm, not 46cm!

Firstly, ratio matters.   I used a rolled-hem foot on the machine to hem the beginning rectangle, as the instructions demand, but I didn't properly account for the seam allowance in my original measurements.  I wasn't even sure of what the rolled hem would use.  Luckily, I didn't go into this project feeling precious about the fabric (long-term stash filler).  At least the time saving rolled-hem foot saves time when I make mistakes. O_o

So my first effort was a bit long, and chopping & hemming another edge added time.  I also decided I wanted a scrunchy part at the handle... Anyway, you'll see what I did.

I let it be a bit long, thinking the seam allowance would eat up the extra length but forgot that I'd measured the height accurately.  Silly me!

Using the rolled-hem foot to do the edges.

I really do like using this foot, but I can't use it with everything.  I find it really tricky with sheer, stretch or very light fabrics.  With those, if I want a rolled hem, I pin-sew-pin-sew and sometimes, depending on the fabric, with pin-tack-sew twice instead.

The rectangle hemmed and then folded, when I realised it was really was too long.

At one point I thought of working backwards: finding the middle, folding it 45degrees and then folding back the corners. But I decided no, I will do it p r o p e r l y.  The slow way.

Bye bye extra bit!

The layout and folding of the bag. Only two short seams!

The scrunchy, made up without measuring.

Of course, the bobbin ran out of thread at literally the last inch, so that's why the joining square on the left is a bit ratty. I'd cracked it a bit by that point.

Joining of the two points, then tacking and little half-hitches to secure the scrunchy.

I tacked the scrunchy in the middle and did a few sneaky half-hitches at the end to hold its length in place.

The finished product!

...and holding my phone, keys, sunnies case, wallet & water bottle!

As the comments in the tutorial suggest, there are lots of ways to go with this one.  For future ideas I'm thinking of what could be done while skipping the first hemming step:

• Hemming the edges at the end. 
• Making two bags, one as a lining, and joining with an enclosed seam or bias binding the edges. 
• Using sealed seams and bias binding the edges. 

Meanwhile, I'm quietly pleased with this one and hope that I'll be able to use this as a chuck-in for the pram or some such.  Glee!