My daughter has gone up from class 2 to class 3, and today was her first day in class 3. I’m still in the phase of wanting to make stuff for her occasions and she’s still in the phase of being happy with what I make.
This time’s challenge was to make her a bag for her lunch box and related stuff.
The challenge came from her choosing a round tiffin box. Most patterns have boxed rectangular or square bottoms and while I paged through several pages of results, I wasn’t particularly keen on starting any one.
When I sew or weave I usually have on my YouTube or Netflix in the background as filler. Either I’m tuned to standup comedy or classic murder mysteries or British political satire or true crime. Plus craft shows, naturally.
In one such session I found a video for a Japanese knot bag. Now, I’ve made a couple before (two years ago, as gifts for the class representative moms).
Reversible Japanese knot bags
These were reversible and monochromatic either side.
This other video I saw, though, was constructed differently, with a harlequin effect and not reversible. (Although I suppose it could be made to be reversible. After all, if the exterior has a visible seam, why can’t the interior be shown?)
Anyhow, the construction interested me, so I decided to try it for the lunch bag.
Because of user error, it took me longer than it ought to have, but in the end it was a fairly simple pattern.
Handy bag by Corinne Bradd
The only problem was, this (the larger size) was just big enough to fit the tiffin box and not much space left over for anything else.
I enjoyed trying out the construction though.
Inside of Japanese knot bag
If you’d like to try it out, here’s the video (the templates are free from the Sew Mag website after registration).
I could have increased the template size to try and fit more in, but I went back to browsing other lunch bag patterns on Pinterest. Isn’t that what everyone does approaching midnight on the day before you need something?
The concept of the drawstring top bucket bag is fairly common and there are several versions freely available online. In fact, I’ve made one or two of those too!
But for some reason I don’t remember this one that I found on one late night browse. It’s a pattern+tutorial by Craft Passion. It’s simple and straightforward and easily customisable. I liked how she dealt with the exterior bottom in particular.
Boxed bottom bag
I also had to grit my teeth and cut into some of the cute prints I bought from Aliexpress a few months ago. (I’m all about the prints, excluding flowers. Unless the flowers are more abstract than real.)
It was worth it, though. My toughest point was when doing the final topstitching. I had to give in and put on the walking foot on my machine before I got a decent stitch.
And the best part was that my daughter loved it when she got up in the morning.
Bonus? The tiffin box fits, with plenty of space left over for the probiotic drink and the box of fruit… And the rectangular bottom doesn’t matter. I call that a win-win. (The handles are actually both the same size, it’s my poor photography that makes them look as though they were mismatched.)
What made my day though, was that my daughter came back and told me her first day of class 3 was amazing. The lunch bag played a small part, too, I think 🙂
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