We were so excited earlier this month to release our first sewing pattern from The Craft Room – The Pip Bag. The whole experience of planning the process, and then writing the pattern, selecting the fabric and accessories, and making the bag whilst photographing the steps, was a true creative collaboration. The pattern is now available as a free download on our website here and we thought that, to celebrate this special moment, we would let you know how it went, what we learnt, and what’s coming in the future in the way of sewing patterns from The Craft Room!
A couple of meetings involving our blog team, where we shared ideas and inspiration, got us started. We settled on a zipped and lined pouch as our first pattern. We thought this would be perfect as it could be used for crafting (for storing sewing projects, or your current crochet or knitting WIP), but would also work as a cosmetic pouch, to hold charging leads, or to keep safe anything else you wanted to pop in it. We decided to give the bag a boxed base, for stability and functionality, and to include options for thicker or thinner interfacing. Including a range of options makes the bag more adaptable and so, we hoped, more attractive to a greater range of people. Now, we were ready to go with our bag project – next, writing the pattern and selecting our fabric and accessories.
The pattern went through a couple of drafts, and was greatly improved by members of the blog team’s feedback, before we were confident that the steps were sufficiently explained without being overwhelming, and that we had made it accessible to both experienced machine sewers and folk just beginning their stitching journey. We hoped to show that inserting a zip, applying interfacing, and concealing all seams is achievable, and may even be fun! There were some steps (in particular, the order in which the bag pieces must be arranged when attaching the zip) which proved really tricky to explain in words, and we knew we would need to include images of these to help illustrate those points in the pattern. Then we were off to the fabric room, to select our fabric! We were looking for a neutral and a patterned design for the outside of the bag, as we felt that combination would work best for clarity. We chose Robert Kaufman “Essex” in the colour Linen and paired it with Liberty Fabric’s “Emily Belle” in Caterpillar. We were looking for a contrasting fabric for the lining, preferably one with a light tone and a delicate design, as it is sometimes difficult to find things in a bag with a darker coloured lining. Our choice was the pretty “Sakura” by Lewis and Irene, and we went with the colour Tiny Blossom Pink with Gold Metallic, as the pinks are subtle and delicate, and the pops of green metallic toned beautifully with the Liberty print on the outside. Finally, we grabbed a zip which toned with one of the outside fabrics, thread which matched the other outside fabric, and interfacing for body and stability, and we were ready to start stitching!
We wanted to make sure we recorded all the steps in the process of making the bag, including measuring and cutting the fabrics and applying the interfacing, so began photographing right from the beginning, before we had even threaded the sewing machine! In order to ensure we didn’t miss anything, we ended up with many images, which made it very straightforward when selecting the ones which best illustrated the steps in the pattern. Taking multiple images of the same thing, but from different angles, was very helpful in ensuring we captured any small details or important points. The addition of arrows and text on the images helped in highlighting any tricky points, and we made a number of tweaks to the written pattern once we had added the images, to ensure the entire pattern flowed well from one step to the next. Finally, we took an image with lovely, warm tones for the pattern front, to show off our creation at its best. There was another team discussion before we settled on The Pip Bag as its name – we decided to theme the names of our sewing patterns from The Craft Room after first names, and liked the simplicity of Pip for our first one.
We really enjoyed the whole process of planning and producing our first sewing pattern, and are very excited to introduce more of our creations in the future. The collaborative nature of this production has been such fun for us all, and we have certainly learnt some very useful tips (take lots of images, don’t be afraid to revise the pattern as many times as necessary, seek other opinions on the clarity of pattern steps) which we know will be invaluable to us in our future plans. Do come back soon for more sewing patterns from The Craft Room – maybe you need a festive crown, a handy fabric pot, a coaster or a pencil case? You’ll find them all here, in the months to come!
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