How to sew a cosmetics bag in an hour! Easy beginner free sewing project.
Materials:
2 coordinating fabrics
Coordinating Thread
Vinyl or Vinyl Covered Fabric
Pattern
Ruler & Pencils
Tracing Paper or Butcher Paper
Interfacing or Fleece (Fusible or Sew-In)
Zipper at least 2” longer than your pattern width.
1. You are going to be your own designer so you will now cut out your pattern. For the medium makeup case, cut a rectangle 14” W x 10” H. In the bottom left hand and right had corners, cut out a 2” x 2” square. This will make your finished bag approx. 13” W x 6” H x 4” D. To cut your smaller make up case, decrease your pattern to 10” W x 8” H with 1” x 1” square notches cut in the corners. Your pattern will look something like this when cut.
If you want straps or handles on your bag, cut them 4” wide and at least 12” long. You can make them longer if you wish. You will cut these parts:
2 – Outside Parts
2 – Inside Parts
4 – Interfacing Pieces
2 – Vinyl Pieces
Straps if Desired
Make sure you don’t use vinyl to heavy for your machine. I use very heavy vinyl but any vinyl thickness will work for you needs.
2. You will need to iron your fusible interfacing to the wrong side of your fabrics. TIP: Cut your interfacing when you cut your pattern. Be sure to use a pressing cloth on synthetic fabrics. Also use the lowest setting as possible but in general follow the instructions that come with your interfacing.
If you use sew-in interfacing you will need simply pin your pieces together before sewing. Once all your pieces are iron carefully, which means your outside pieces and inside pieces have interfacing; you will pin right sides together, carefully lining up the bottom first.
3. Sew the across the bottom. Lock Stitches at beginning and end. Remove the pins at the bottom and iron the bottom seam flat. Ironing the seams flat will give your bottoms and sides a nice crisp edge. You will then sew up the carefully pinned sides as shown.
Do not sew around the opening notch. Only straight across the bottom and straight up the sides. (See the illustration above if you still aren’t sure what parts to sew. I sew in 3/8” of an inch from the edge for my seams. Tip: If you have a pattern you like, transfer it to plexi-glass and cut it out with a plexi-glass knife. Use a rotary blade to whip our projects fast.
4. Now you will sew your corners. Please pin the corners as shown.
You will line up your ironed seams. You need to make sure on all you stitches that you lock them at the beginning and end. You can see that I have done that in the picture to the right. After sewing, trim all loose strings so they do not show up by accident on the outside of your make-up case.
5. Repeat the above steps for the inside of your bag. The only difference will be adding vinyl unless you use a vinyl material only. Some good materials are plastic tablecloth material on a roll at your fabric store. Or hey, if you find a table cloth you like already packaged, just use it.
These are nice because they have a fleece or felt backing and do not need to have interfacing, they are easy to cut and sew. If you use vinyl to cover a inside fabric, I recommend trimming off the access on the outside seam after you have finished sewing. It’ll make it easier to sew later.
6. Slip and tuck in well, your Inside Bag inside of your outside bag, with wrong sides together. You will then want to fold the inside back down as shown leaving about 3/8” space between the top and the bottom. Don’t line the two bags up evenly. This will make a zipper that is dropped down into the bag. It should look like my bag above before we put our zipper in.
After, you’ve finished your outer bag, be sure that you inspect your seams. As you can see to the left, my seams line up as well. This the result of careful pinning.
Now, you will take your bag back to the ironing board and fold the top down about 1” towards the inside, as I’ve shown in the picture below. Do this all around the top.
About ¼” or 3/8” from the back seam on the end the zipper is closed, you will want to place a pin and pin the zipper in on both sides of the seam These are the last two pins that you’ll put in, you should have already pinned the rest of the zipper in.
7. Now you’ll want to add your zipper and you are almost done. This is the part that is tedious. You’ll want to take extra care to make sure that you keep things even and centered. The next few steps will mostly be images.
As shown to the left, fold the end of your zipper down and tuck it in between the outer and inner bag. You’ll want to make sure your ends aren’t visible and that the bottom zipper is tucked in, only if it’s just a little bit. You will see quite a bit of the zipper as shown in the illustration on the inside and on the outside, you’ll only see the teeth.
Don’t worry about the holes your pins will make in the vinyl, they will iron out when you iron over them using the paper that came with your vinyl or parchment paper. Now, carefully go down one side of the bag pinning from the open end of the zipper to the closed end of the zipper.
The result will look like this when you pull the tail of the zipper up. You will see a small space. This space is important if you want to pull the end of your zipper into your bag. Or, you can leave it out. I like it in and a friend of mine puts square fabric on the end of the tail to make it look like to matches the bag. How your finish this part is up to you. I’ll show you how I do it.
8. Now, I like to turn my sewing machine so it hangs off the edge of my table a little. I also remove any extra parts that might be too bulky. Place your bag on your machine. I sew in just a little farther in than the inside bag is rolled down.
This is only slightly more than 3/8” or almost ½” . I also start with one of the seams behind me. I don’t want to fight over a seam when I first start, I want to make sure everything runs smoothly. Go all the way around the top of the bag, be sure to lock your stitches. If you wanted to add straps.
Do that before sewing around the top, just tuck them between the outside bag and zipper. Make sure they are even and centered. Be very mindful of the seams as you run over them. They are thicker and can break needles if you aren’t prepared. Remove pins as you go so you don’t cause injury to your hands. You’re almost DONE! YEAH!
If you want to add embellishments, trims, etc. Do so before you do any sewing put after you iron. The interfacing will help stabilize anything you add. I like to add monograms for gifts and straps for when I’m on the go. The same instructions apply to both the medium and small bag. This is my finished product and I’m excited I have a new and even larger makeup back to go in my gym bag. Isn’t it nice to have something new!
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