Whatever Wednesday: Ruffled Church Bag

Just recently I have been assigned to teacher some of the kids at church.  I had a church bag, but it wasn't quite big enough to hold my binder, manual and scriptures, so I decided to make one.  It was great to be able to use some fabric that I have kept for a couple of years.  Does anyone else collect fabric and never use it?  I do it all the time.  I save the fabric for a "special" project and then I never end of using it.  

While I was making this bag, I was making things up as I went along.  I just had an image of the bag in my head and then went off of that.  So if this tutorial does make sense, I'm sorry :)

This is how I made it:

1) Using a thicker material, I cut 5 pieces of fabric.  2 that were 17"x14", 2 that were 7"x14" and 1 that was 17"x7"

2) Then cut 5 pieces of a different fabric (this will be the inside) in the same dimensions. 

3) I wanted to have a pocket in the inside, so I cut another piece of the outside fabric and then sewed it down the middle.

4) I put all the fronts together of all of the 5 pieces. Sewed them and then flip that inside out.

5) I sewed handles into the front and back pieces of the bag.

Here are all of the pieces sewn together.

Now it's time to put the bag together.  As you can tell from this picture, there's always a kid with me :)

6) I put the brown sides together and sewed the sides together.

7) I put the two sides onto the bag.

Now for the bottom, this was tricky for me.

8) I sewed the bottom onto the bag.

Here's the bag, without the ruffles.  

Now for the ruffles!  

9) For each fabric, I cut two strips that were 8"x45".  I ironed the fabric in half, so the strip was only 4 inches wide.

10) Using my longest stitch, I sewed the tops of the fabric and then gather it by pulling the bobbin thread.  This makes it much more ruffly than using elastic thread.

11) Then I put the ruffles onto the bag.  I glued the bottom three because I  didn't want to mess up the pocket in the inside.

Here's all the ruffles.  I then put a ruffle on the very top of the bag, to cover the brown.

And now I have a fun ruffly bag for church!!  I'm thinking about putting a big ruffled flower on it, what do you think?

Here's the inside