Let’s Make The Mountain Saddle Bag From Emmaline Bags! An Adorable Crossbody With Easy To Add Loc

Hi everyone, welcome to the Oaklears YouTube channel. In today's tutorial, we are going to make the cutest crossbody bag with the cutest flap. I've been so excited to make this bag, you guys. Today, we're going to make the Mountain Saddle Bag and this pattern comes to us from Emeline Bags. I love Emeline Bags so much. Not only are they like my go-to source for most of my hardware, they have amazing patterns like the NCW, which is abbreviated for the Necessary Clutch Wallet, which is one of the best wallet patterns that exists anywhere. But this crossbody bag is also one of the most beautiful, adorable crossbody bags out there. And it's really not that hard. There's just like one section that's a little tricky, but other than that, it is a very simple bag to put together. So let's go through this adorable bag. You can see we have this beautiful closure on the front. I think this is like, it's like a snap lock, it's like a tongue and lock, I don't know. But you open this up, it has this really lovely accent right here. Open this up, we have the flap, we have a simple zipper pocket on the inside, basic back panel, really cool accents on the side. This is a really cool way of attaching a D-ring connector, or in this case, a rectangle ring connector. The strap is not removable, however, if you wanted to use a removable strap instead of using a rectangle ring, just use a D-ring. So if you're loving the material on this bag, this is March's Bag Making B-Club Box. This is a monthly subscription box. It is a mystery. It is put together by Wonderground Fabrics and myself, Jessica from Oaklears, and we pick out all the patterns, the materials, send it all out to you, have everything you need to make this bag. This is one of those patterns this month, though, where you are going to want to pay attention to my cut list, okay? We're going to get a little creative. We're going to make a couple changes that are not in the pattern, like piecing together the gussets. So, don't cut out your pattern pieces just yet if you have the box. Wait until we get into the video, I have a cut list for you to help you make sure you get everything cut just the right way. If you're interested in signing up for the Bag Making B-Box, I will have a link down below. If you are a member of this B-Box, I need to tell you, I've been very bad about not mentioning this in videos, you have three months to use the code to download the pattern for free. So, as part of the box subscriber, you get all the materials, all the hardware, specialty tags, all kinds of fun stuff, treats, like lots of fun stuff, but you also get the pattern for free. However, to access that pattern, you're going to be given a code. This is going to be as an insert inside the bag. You will need to use that code and go to the pattern designer's website in order to get the pattern for free. But it does expire after three months, so you have three months to grab the pattern. If you wait until after three months, that pattern is no longer free. So please make sure, even if you don't want to open the box right now, get the code, go grab the pattern, save it to your computer, you don't, you don't, you don't want to not have this pattern. This pattern is adorable. However, the pattern is not exclusive to the box or anything like that. So if you just want to follow along in today's video with your own material, you can do that easily. The pattern is on MlineBags.com and I will have a link for it down below. If you're new to the Oakwoods YouTube channel, please make sure you click subscribe down below. If you like this video, please give it a like. Any questions, comments, leave them down in the comment section down below. Apparently on YouTube, there's now like a community feature where you can post things. So I'm just looking at my cell phone, but on my cell phone, if you go to the Oakwoods YouTube channel, there should be a button that says community. If you click on that, you should be able to make your own posts as part of the Oakwoods community where you can share your own photos of things you've been making. Isn't that crazy? So for those of you guys who have been wanting to figure out a way to share your makes with me, but you're not on Instagram or Facebook, you don't post over there, you can actually post in the community section of the Oakwoods YouTube channel and we can all see your bag. So please, please, please utilize that. I just became aware of it. I'm so excited to check it out. So post over there if you make the bag. I especially want to see it if you use the bee box and you mix up the materials, which you can definitely do. Or if you use your own materials, I'm really excited to see a lot of different variations of this bag. All right, you guys, let's get started. So for this bag, you're going to need about a half a yard of exterior material. For today's bag, I will be using a bonded nylon, which I think turned out beautifully. You're going to also want about a quarter yard of accent material. We're using much less than that because we are not going to be building a strap. We're going to just use our accent material for like strap holders, things like that. I just want to tell you, if you haven't cut down anything yet and you are using the bee box, please don't cut anything yet. Let me show you the cut diagram because we're going to do it a little differently based off the hardware we're using. So for my accent material, I have this really beautiful faux leather vinyl here. And then for the lining, you're going to want about three quarters of a yard of material. We're using waterproof canvas today for the lining, which is exactly what I want because bonded nylon doesn't have a whole lot of structure and I'm not adding any sort of stabilizer to this. So the structure of my bag is going to come from the lining today. So here's the hardware we're going to be using today. I'm going to be using a one inch wide webbing and this is going to be for our crossbody strap. So to go with this strap, which is a fixed strap, it's not in removable strap. We have a strap adjuster so you can adjust the length of it, you just can't take it off the bag. Then I have two bag tags. One of them is this rooted in the wild bag tag, which is custom with the bee box from March. And then the other one is my personal Oakley Roots bag tag. Both of these are customized and produced by Hardwood & Hyde. Then we have this adorable press lock. This is going to go on the end of the flap. It's so cute. I never work with this hardware and we got to do something with this more often because this is so easy to install. So you have the piece that's going to be attached to the flap and then you have the piece that will be attached to the front panel. You're going to need a washer to go with it and a couple of tiny screws. And then I have two one inch wide rectangle rings. Now the pattern calls for three quarter inch wide rectangle rings. So this is where we have to cut our accent vinyl a little differently and you have just enough in the bee box to do this. So like I said, don't pre-cut the strips so that they're three quarters of an inch in the end. We're going to cut them according to the cut diagram I show you in just a moment. And then I have two rivets. You could use more. Honestly, I would probably add two more rivets to this. I would use a total of four and I'll tell you where I would add them later in the bag. And then we have a nine inch number three zipper with a number three zipper pull. So here's most of the other stuff I'll be using today because I am adding rivets. I have a rivet press and a hole punch. The thread I'll be using that goes through the needle is from Sia Swag. It's Tex 45 color sandstone. In the bobbin, however, I'll be using a Gooderman polyester thread. My needle today is a Microtex 8012. I have some glue and duct tape. This is to go with the metal hardware to protect it and make sure it doesn't move around and rip anything. I have a one inch by six inch ruler as always, a few different marking tools. I have a silver ink pen, which works really well in vinyl, but only vinyl, and then a water erasing marker and a chalk pencil, some clips to hold it all together. And then I have a small screwdriver set. Now let's go do some pattern pieces. And I'm going to start with the gusset because I want to put up the cut list real quick. This is the diagram for how I cut out the pieces for the exterior of the bag. Because it is a directional print, you cannot cut out the gusset and the front panel and the back panel and the flap to all have proper direction as the pattern suggests. So when this happens, when you're working with material that you really want to use for the exterior of the bag and you just don't have enough of it, you have enough material to make it, but not to keep the pattern placement correct, you can break it up. So I took each of the three pieces that make up the gusset. You're going to cut them all out. All those pieces have a little bit on the ends of the gusset pieces where they connect. It's about a half of an inch. Keep that there. Don't cut that off. Keep that there. And use those three pieces to cut out the three segments of the gusset. We're going to build a gusset for the exterior because we are limited on material. For the lining portion of the gusset, I did just use the full gusset as intended in the pattern. So I taped them together. So first I did not tape the pattern pieces together and I cut them out individually from the exterior and then I taped the pattern pieces together overlapping the shaded areas as the pattern instructs you and then cut a piece from my lining. Now if you don't want to do a piece gusset, you can use the lining for the exterior. You have enough, you have plenty of lining material. So you have enough lining material to cut two gusset panels from it and use one for the interior and one for the exterior. You can mix this up too. You can decide to make the bottom part of the gusset because you see the exterior in the end is going to come together like this. So you can make the center part, the waterproof canvas, and then the top parts, the bonded nylon. You can have a lot of fun with this. But I'm going to piece the gusset of the exterior together as shown here. So next up is pattern piece G. This is going to be your body front and back. You're going to have two cuts of your exterior and two cuts of lining. Remember, since we're doing the mini, the pattern pieces are different. So they're not A, B, and C. We're going to start with G, H, and I. Then we have pattern piece H. You're going to have one cut of your exterior material and one cut of your lining. This is for the flap of the bag. Now let's go over these accent cuts, okay, because it's different from what the pattern says at the very beginning because we're not building a strap. So first thing to note, you're going to have two cuts of accent. These are going to be two inches by six inches. The pattern's going to have you cut these one and a half inch wide by six inches because it's assuming you're using the three quarter inch rectangle ring. If you are using the B box, you have a one inch rectangle ring. It's not going to work with a skinnier cut of vinyl. It's going to move around too much. It's going to twist and turn. It's not good. So if you don't have the three quarter inch rectangle ring and you have a one inch rectangle ring, then you're going to cut this a little differently. Just cut them two inches by six inches. That's going to work just great. So do that first. You can just cut a strip that's two inches long. Cut it in half. Now you have two pieces. Then you're going to have four cuts of material. Each of these are four inches by one and a half inch, and then you're going to have a longer cut that goes along the flap, and this is one and a half inches by 11 inches. I'll put the cut diagram up right now for you to take a look at how I cut this out. Again, this is one of those things where you have just enough material. And then finally, we have our zipper pocket lining pieces. You're going to have two cuts for your zipper lining, and you're going to have one cut for the zipper pocket facing. All right, the only real prep step I'm doing because I'm not adding interfacing to anything is going to be drawing the rectangle on the back of the zipper facing panel. You're going to measure one inch down from the top. Draw a horizontal line. Then measure three-eighths of an inch down from that. Our window's going to be pretty skinny today. So three inch high rectangle, and then the full rectangle's going to be eight inches wide. So use that midpoint mark to measure four inches in either direction. I forgot to mention all the different tapes I'll be using today, but as always, I have double-sided tape. I have a quarter inch wide and eighth of an inch wide double-sided tape. And then I have some Kimberbell paper tape. So now we're going to work on installing the zipper pocket in the lining. So you're going to take one of your main lining body panels and lay it right side up and grab your zipper facing. And you want to line up your zipper facing so that it is right side down, right sides together with the main lining panel. And it's centered and three-quarters of an inch down from the top edge. So once you have that where you want it, make sure you tape it down to hold it in place. Now we're going to go to the sewing machine and we're going to stitch right over that little rectangle that's on the wrong side of our facing. I would lower your stitch length to like a two millimeter stitch length, and make sure your needle hits every single one of these four corners. I also forgot to mention you're going to need a seam ripper, sorry. So after I have this rectangle stitched, what I did was I drew a horizontal line going between the two long edges of the rectangle, and then I drew a couple triangles that go about a half of an inch in from each short edge. So we're going to use our seam ripper to rip along that center horizontal line. You're ripping through both the facing and the main lining material. Once you get a big enough hole, you can use your scissors to just cut along that center line until you get to the tip of your triangle, and then just follow the diagonal down to the corner of your stitching. Now with this method, you want to get your cut as close to the thread as possible without actually cutting the thread. So this is just one of those pockets that just takes practice. So really, really close, like the tip of your scissors should be touching the thread but not cutting it. Okay, now we want to give this a good press. This is easier if you have like quilt cotton. If you want to use an iron to press this, you can. I'm just going to finger press this first, and then I'm going to flip it so that the facing and the main lining material come wrong sides together, and just press really well along that seam. Just focus on one edge at a time because it can seem a little overwhelming pulling everything out together, especially if you're using waterproof canvas. So you can use tape to just hold this down so it stays nice and flat. Also I find with waterproof canvas, if you just flatten it out really well from the front, press it from the right side of your water-resistant canvas on this here, and it will keep it nice and flat. Or you can put like a ruler and something heavy on top of it, and it will flatten out while we work on the next step. So set this to the side. So now take one of your lining zipper pockets and lay it right side up. And then grab your zipper, and you can install the zipper pull now or you can wait. I'm just going to wait. And we're going to lay the zipper right side up. Use some clips or tape, whatever is easier for you. I'm going to use clips for this step, but I'll use tape for when we install it to the main panel. So just hold this along the top edge. And now sew along this top edge at a scant quarter inch seam allowance, so not quite a quarter inch. This is important. This is a very narrow zipper tape. If you're using a number five zipper tape, you can use the bigger quarter inch seam allowance. If you're using the more narrow number three zipper tape, you want to use a scant quarter inch here. We don't want these stitches to be seen in the end. So once you have that stitched on, you're going to press the lining up and away from the zipper. So the zipper tape stays flat on that seam, but the seam for the lining is going to fold, so you can flip it up. So now grab your remaining lining panel and lay it right side up and lay your zipper right side up. Make sure you match up the sides of both lining panels and the top edge of your zipper tape is going to meet up with the top edge of the remaining lining panel and clip along this top edge. And now once you have that clipped, we're going to just sew along that edge at a scant quarter inch seam allowance, backstitch at the beginning and the end. Once you have that stitched in place, press that lining panel up and away as well. And so the goal here is that we want the zipper tape to be really flat. If you're using Quilcott and you can iron this and get the zipper tape nice and flat. If you're using waterproof canvas like I am, it's a little bit trickier and you see how the zipper just kind of curls up like that on the sides. That's going to make installing it difficult. So what we can do is we can flatten this out with our fingers and we can baste right along the very edge of each side of our zipper tape at about an eighth of an inch seam allowance just to hold it in place and keep it flat. Okay, so you see how nice that is now? Nice and flat. So now I'm going to add my zipper pull. I feel comfortable adding this at any point, but like I said before, if you wanted to add it before you started sewing it all together, you can do that too. So slide that on. I'm going to grab a lighter and I'm going to melt down the ends of my zipper tape because as you can see, it's fraying and I don't want it to fray. And by using a lighter, it seals in those plastic threads so you don't have to worry about fraying again. So now I'm going to grab my double-sided tape and I'm going to add it right along the very, very edge of both sides of my zipper tape. Make sure this double-sided tape doesn't go past your quarter-inch seam allowance. You don't want to see the tape in the end. So now make sure your zipper is right side up and closing towards the left. So when the zipper opens, it goes towards the right. When it closes, it goes towards the left. Grab your lining panel with the window. Take the paper off the top double-sided tape piece and then just lay your lining panel right side up so that the window centers over your zipper. Make sure the edges of the facing match up with the edges of the lining. They are the same width so they should match up exactly. And just tape this in place along that top edge, making sure that you're covering the stitching. Once you're happy with that, pull your zipper pull up through the window, flip this around, pull the paper off the double-sided tape on the bottom edge, fold this back down, and press this over that bottom edge. Now, again, this window is narrow, but the zipper tape is very skinny. So you want to make sure you're covering all the stitching. I know it's a little tricky for me. That's why I said make sure you use a scant quarter-inch because it's too big of a seam allowance and you're going to see that stitching in the end. Alright, once you have it the way you want it, we're going to take this back to the sewing machine and we're just going to topstitch along all four edges of this window at an eighth of an inch seam allowance. You can keep your tails long at the beginning and the end or you can backstitch. I'm going to do both. Be sure that your two zipper lining panels are both open and facing away from one another. Alright, look how good that is. So when you open up your zipper, you should be able to reach inside. It should not be closed anywhere. So now fold both of your lining panels down. If you have tape, you can remove it now. I'll be honest, this paper tape doesn't do anything on the back of a waterproof canvas. Now with my two lining panels right sides together, I have the bottom one that overhangs quite a bit more than the top one. So I'm going to trim the bottom one down so that it's the same, in the end, the same length spot as the top one. It's not the same length, but you know what I mean. So now we're going to grab some clips. Now I'm going to take the bottom edge of both of the lining panels and I'm going to fold it back by about a half of an inch and I'm going to add clips to hold that in place. We're going to turn the bag out through this bottom of the zipper pocket in the end. So we need to prepare it now. And then we're going to pull the lining panel away from the zipper panels and we're going to clip along the edges of our zipper panels to hold them in place. And then flip your panel over and pull up the sides of the main body lining panel and we're going to stitch along both the sides of the zipper pocket at about a quarter-inch seam allowance, maybe three-eighths of an inch if you can do it. Make sure you backstitch at the beginning and the end. Make sure you backstitch really well along the bottom edge where it's folded. You are not going to be closing the bottom edge here so you're just going to do the sides. Take your time with this. I would suggest using a zipper foot because you do need to get close to the zipper window without sewing over it. There you go. Your zipper pocket is all done and just test it one more time. Make sure you can reach your hand all the way through it and out the bottom. So now I'm going to attach my beautiful bag tag right below the zipper here. So I just measured three inches down from the top edge of my lining panel and used the midpoint mark to center the tag. Before I attach this though, I got to make sure that that lining panel is out of the way. So if you're going to do this, move the lining panel away and topstitch along all four edges of this tag at an eighth of an inch seam allowance. I suggest leaving the tails really long, pulling them both through the back and tying them off on the wrong side of the material. And there we go. Lining panel done. All right. So now we're going to build the interior. So you're going to need both of your lining main body panels and your lining gusset. And I'm going to tell you, this is one of the tightest gussets I've ever done. It's a very, very tight gusset. It's doable, but you're going to be cutting into the gusset quite a bit. So we're going to grab our gusset and we're going to lay it right side down so it's right sides together with the back panel that has the zipper. Use the midpoint marks on the bottom of that main panel and the midpoint mark along the long edge of your gusset to match these up right sides together and clip in place. And then pull up the top left corner and clip this top corners together and then repeat that with the top right corners. So now the pattern has a suggestion to sew this in sections to sort of sew the top straight edges first and the bottom straight edge and then sew the curves at the end. If you have struggled with gussets, I suggest you give it a try. I'm not going to do it because I do need a little bit more flexibility to move around my gusset as I'm working with it. That's just, I know my process. So I'm going to sew it all at once, but we're going to prep it really well. So we're going to flip this over. So we're looking at the back of the main panel and we're going to clip as much of the straight edges as we can. But honestly, there's not that many straight edges. It's not many inches of straight edges. So like this is about all I have. The rest of this that doesn't have any clips, that all is going to be a curve. So looking at my gusset, I'm going to grab my scissors and I'm going to start cutting slits into the gusset. These are about a quarter of an inch deep and they're about half of an inch apart. And you want a lot of them. So a lot of times with these types of bags, we'll just do like two or three cuts to let it spread. This one, you're going to need a lot of cuts because it is very, very tight. All right, once you have lots of cuts into the gusset, we're going to go to the back of the main panel and we're just going to start clipping this in place. So you're going to let that gusset spread using the cuts, get it to spread around the main curve. All right, so you see how the gusset's able to just spread around there because of all those cuts? Now, the lining corners are not that important because if you do have some pleating or some lumps and bumps, you're not going to notice it in the end. It's in the bottom of the inside of the bag. But this is good practice for when we do the exterior because the exterior you will notice if you, you know, have unsmooth areas. All right, so now I'm going to go to the sewing machine and I'm going to start sewing at the top at a 3 1⁄8 inch seam allowance and backstitch. As I go down the side, I'm going to increase my seam allowance to a 1⁄2 inch seam allowance as I go around the corner, the bottom, and the other corner. As I go up the last side, I'm going to bring my seam allowance back to a 3 1⁄8 inch seam allowance and then backstitch at the end. I would suggest using a zipper foot for this and I always sew gussets with the gusset wrong side up. Okay, so after you have that sewn, make sure you didn't accidentally sew the zipper lining into the seam. That's pretty easy to do. I did it the first time I sewed this. So make sure that's not sewn in. If it is, unpick that section, pull it out, just restitch that one section. So now again, keep that out of the way. And starting about 1 inch down from the top of this lining panel, cut the seam allowance down to about 1⁄8 of an inch. We're going to leave the seam allowance uncut at the very top edges because having that bigger seam allowance is going to make it easier for us to press open that seam and flatten it out in the end, which will make it easier to topstitch. So we're going to leave the top, but we're going to trim down the seam allowance everywhere else. All right, now we're going to repeat that with the other panel. So grab your remaining lining panel, lay it right side up, take your gusset, lay it right side down. Once again, match up the midpoint marks on the bottom first. Little bag is tricky to hold in place. And then just clip these right sides together at their midpoints, and then clip them right sides together at their top corners, and then clip as much of the straight edge as you can. Like I said, there's really very little straight edge on this entire, you know, seam. And then pull the main panel away from the gusset, grab some scissors, and just cut into the gusset quarter-inch deep snips about a half of an inch apart, or even closer together. I'm obviously not measuring them. I'm just eyeballing it. And you can always add more cuts to the gusset when you're at the sewing machine. If you're just in a section where you're really having a hard time getting that gusset to stay where it needs to stay and wrap around the edge, you can just grab your scissors and cut some more slits into it to help it spread. All right, once you have the gusset porcupine, you can grab some clips and get it to wrap around those corners. Okay, flip this over so you're looking at the wrong side of the gusset, and just like we did before, we're going to sew around this edge with a three-eighths inch seam allowance on the top corners and a half-inch seam allowance on the bottom. Take your time. Use a stiletto. You have your scissors nearby, and I suggest using a zipper foot. Backstitch at the beginning and the end. All right, once you have that sewn, once again, just carefully cut down the seam allowance, but leave the top of the seam uncut so that we can spread that open in the end. And there you go. Your lining is complete. You can set it to the side. So now grab all of your accent pieces. So you're going to have your four smaller cups, which are your strap bands, and then you're going to have your longer cut, which is for the front flap, and then you're going to have your two cuts that we modified. Remember, these are two inches by six inches instead of the one and a half inch wide, which is what everything else is. And these are going to be the strap anchors. So on the wrong side of each one of these, you're going to want to measure and mark your midpoint line along the back of all of them. And then I just covered each one of those midpoint lines with some double-sided tape. And we're going to fold the long raw edges back to meet those midpoint marks and tape them in place. Do this for all of your little accent pieces. So after I have these taped, all my pieces, except for my strap anchors, are now three quarters of an inch wide. My strap anchors are one inch wide, and that's, once again, just because my hardware is one inch wide hardware. So now, only focusing on the strap anchors, we're going to take both of these to the sewing machine, and we're going to topstitch along both long edges of these at an eighth of an inch seam allowance to just hold this in place. You're not topstitching any of the other ones. Those will be topstitched later. These ones are on their own. Okay, you can now set all your little pieces to the side, and we'll come back to them in just a moment. Now let's work on the flap. So the first thing you want to do is make sure you mark the midpoints on the top and the bottom of both your exterior and lining flap pieces. And then we're going to lay our two flap pieces right sides together, match up those midpoint marks, and match up all the edges. And let's clip along the sides and the curved bottom. We don't need to worry about the top straight edge so much, because we're not going to be sewing that closed just yet. We're only going to worry about the sides and the bottom. And now we're going to go to the sewing machine, and we're going to sew along the sides and the curved bottom of the flap at a three-eighths inch seam allowance, backstitch at the beginning and the end. Once you have that sewn, you want to cut down the corners on the very top. And then I'm just going to trim the entire seam allowance in half. If you have pinking shears, use those when you do this, and that will help with the rounded corners here. If you don't have pinking shears, that's okay, I'll show you what you can do. Just trim this down. You can take your scissors and just very, very carefully cut little tiny slits into the seam allowance. Don't cut the stitching. You want it to get, you want the cuts to get close to the stitching, but you don't actually want to cut any of the stitches, obviously. So do this for both corners. And doing this just allows the seam to spread, because we're going to be turning it in the opposite direction of how it's going right now. This is where if you have a turning tool, it's helpful. We're going to flip this so it's material right side out now. And press along the seam to smooth it out. Really work on smoothing out those corners. And if you want to use your turning tool to help with this, you can just kind of drag it right along the seam to get it really crisp. And then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to kind of roll out each section of the seam and use clips to hold it the way I want. Depending on the material you're using, you could use an iron to flatten this out. But honestly, I just feel like I have so much more control using my fingers rather than an iron. So that's what I'm going to do. Okay, once you have it all flattened out and pressed the way you want it, we're going to take this to the sewing machine and I'm going to topstitch around all the edges. The curved seam and I'm going to topstitch over the top edge. Now I'm not adding any stabilizer or anything here or a bag tag, so topstitching over the top edge for me is fine. If you wanted to insert some stabilizer later, then leave the raw top edge unstitched, but I'm going to do all of it. Okay, so now we're going to attach that little accent that's going to go over the center of the flap. It's so cute. You have the midpoint marked on the top raw edge, but we need to mark it on the bottom as well without it being permanent. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to fold this in half and I'm going to mark on the lining side or actually you can mark, you know what, no, you can mark on the exterior side because it's going to be covered up anyway, so it's fine. So we're going to just fold this in half, go all the way to the bottom here. I'm going to grab my water erasing marker and I'm just going to draw a line to show me where the midpoint is. Now on the wrong side of this little accent, I'm going to grab some double-sided tape and I'm just going to stick this down right over those raw edges, nice and centered. Now using the midpoint mark on the bottom and the top and the back of this, we're going to center this little accent and make sure it is completely straight, which is hard to do. So I'm just going to remove a little bit of tape at a time. I'm going to start at the top and center it on the top edge and then I'm going to slowly go down, keeping this as straight as possible. What I do is I just kind of flip up my accent and I make sure that the raw edges match up with that midpoint line on the bottom of my flap and then give it a good press. If you feel like it's a little wonky, lift it up, straighten it out and do it again. There you go. And if you need to, grab a ruler and just make sure it's the same distance from each side. Okay, that is looking good. You should have a good amount of overhang here on the bottom. Now let's work on installing the hardware. Future Jess here, as you can see, I forgot to topstitch down this accent strip on the flap, so please make sure you topstitch this down on the flap before you install this hardware for your lock. Don't make the same mistake I did. But I will show you later in the video how to rectify this. Okay, so now you're going to need the male part of your lock, which I think this is a lot of times called the tongue, because we're just going to slide it over the very edge of this. Now, the pattern does tell you, it depends on the material you're using, but you might want to fold this over the edge and then fit this on, see if it needs that extra bulk. I'll just tell you if you're using the big box, it won't work. It won't fit like that. So we're just going to trim it down. So flipping this over to the lining side, I'm going to carefully just trim down that accent so it lines up with the very edge of my flap, and then flip this over, and this is thick enough for me. So you can pinch it, and you always want to give it a test run before you get the glue out and everything, and center it over the accent just like that. How pretty is that? Isn't that gorgeous? Look at that. So cute. Okay, so now we're going to do it again, but with glue this time. Glue's always helpful. We're going to screw this in as well, so make sure you have your teeny tiny screws. So I'm just going to add a little bit of glue right along the edge, only where that accent is. Just a small amount goes a long way. And then I'm just going to carefully reinsert the hardware over it and slide it into place. There we go. Make sure it's exactly centered. So cute, right? So cute. So now we're going to flip this over so we're looking at the back, and I even like to add a little bit of, like, tiny bit of glue into the screw holes to help keep the screws from wiggling out, and just gently screw it in the screw hole. Make sure it's nice and tight, and repeat with the other one. And there we go. Look at that. Isn't that cool? I love this. We've got to work with these types of locks more often because they are so much easier to install than the ones that you have to, like, cut a hole for. So you can now set this to the side. So now let's work on this gusset. So like I said, I cut mine into three pieces. So you see when you put out your pattern piece, like, this is one piece here. It's going to have a shaded area. You're going to keep that shaded area. All three of the pattern pieces to create the gusset have that, including the center one. If you're piecing it together like I am, don't cut that off or anything. So what we're going to do is you're going to have the two top pieces of your gusset, which are the angled ones, and then the bottom straight piece. We're going to lay these right sides together, short edge to short edge, and clip together. So I'm just going to do both sides. Remember the shorter of the top pieces is the top, so that's not the edge we're connecting. The two edges should match up exactly. So now we're going to sew along both of these short edges at a quarter inch seam allowance. This is important. It's a quarter inch seam allowance. If you do bigger than that, it's not going to work. So quarter inch seam allowance, both edges, backstitch at the beginning and the end. Okay, once you have these three pieces sewn together, you need to topstitch the seam. So you can press the seam open if you'd like and topstitch on both edges of that seam to hold it flat. I'm going to press the seam to the bottom part of the gusset. So the seam on both sides is going to be pressed behind the bottom section. And I'm going to topstitch along the bottom edge of that seam on both sides at an eighth of an inch seam allowance to hold it in place and keep it nice and flat. Backstitch at the beginning and the end. And there we are. Now you have the full gusset pieced together. So like I said, this is a great option if you're limited on materials or if you have a directional print and you've like, you know, if you're using a directional print, either the entire print's going to have to be sideways if you just did it in one piece or one side would be right side up and the other side would be upside down. So this is a great option and you can also have fun with just mixing and matching the center and the tops. So once you have it done, just take your pattern piece for the full gusset and make sure it is the same size and it is exactly perfect. So now let's mark the midpoints on this gusset. We're going to mark along both of the long edges and both of the short edges. So now grab the rest of your accent pieces, your strap anchors and your strap bands. Grab a strap anchor and wrap it around a rectangle ring so it's wrong sides together. Bring those short edges together to meet and you can clip these in place. Do this for the other one as well. And now take both of these to the sewing machine and just baste along the raw edges of each one of these strap anchors to hold them in place. So now using a ruler, you can't see it because I'm using a chalk marker, but I can see it. Using a ruler, you're going to measure from one of the top edges down four inches and draw a line going across the gusset and then do another measurement two and a half inches down and draw a line going across the gusset. I would suggest using double-sided tape on a lot of these sections. So I'm actually going to just cut a small piece of double-sided tape and stick it inside my strap anchor because I don't like how loosey-goosey this is. So not too close to the hardware because I don't want the tape to be seen in the end. Just more in the center and then fold this just to get that as flat as possible. Okay, so take one of your strap anchors and on whatever side you want to be the wrong side, add a piece of double-sided tape two inches long. I'm just kind of eyeballing it. You don't want the double-sided tape to get too close to the hardware because that's not stitched down or anything and you don't want it to be seen in the end. So we're going to focus on the four-inch line, so it's four inches down. What we want to do is we want to lay our strap anchor so that it's centered and about a little over an eighth of an inch above that line. So don't match up your strap anchor with that line or else it will be seen in the end. So we're going to make it go just a little bit above that line by about an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch. So if you want to mark some midpoints on the line and use the midpoint on the top of your gusset, you can do that to help make sure it's completely centered. So I removed the tape from the back of the strap anchor and just taped this down. So just hold that there. So now you're going to grab one of your side band strips and you're going to lay double-sided tape centered along the back of it, so where those raw edges are. What we want to do is we want to line this up so that the bottom edge of the strip is going to line up with that four-inch mark and it's going to cover the raw edge of the bottom of your strap anchor. So let's remove the paper from the tape and then just carefully tape this down. Now this can be a little tricky depending on like the material you're using, how bulky it is. One thing you want to really make sure you pay attention to is the bottom edge here. If your strap anchor, if the raw edge of that is kind of poking out, then you need to move it up a little bit because the point of this is to cover that bottom raw edge. So once it's where you want it and it's covering everything up and it's nice and straight, we're going to take this to the sewing machine and we're going to topstitch along both long edges of that strap band at an eighth of an inch seam allowance, backstitch at the beginning and the end. All right, there you go. There's one of them. Now grab another strap band and once again add double-sided tape to the back of it and then make sure you can see your two and a half inch line. So it's above the first one, it's closer towards the top of the gusset. Take the paper off your double-sided tape and the bottom edge of your strap band is going to match up with that two and a half inch mark. Just make sure it's straight and wrap it around that strap anchor. Isn't that cool? And once again, we're going to take this to the sewing machine and we're going to topstitch along both long edges of this strap band at an eighth of an inch seam allowance. So once you have those sewn on, flip this to the wrong side of the gusset and just trim down any of the overhang on the sides. You need it all to be one size. So now here's the spot that I would suggest adding a rivet if you want. You see how this top of the loop here that holds the hardware is kind of like this? This can easily twist like that and then it's going to wear down your vinyl over time. So we like this to be really tight so that the hardware can't twist around. So this is a good spot to add a rivet. Now if you want to use your own rivets, you're going to need a total of four. So two rivets for this gusset and then two rivets for the strap later. If you have the bee box, you have two rivets in the box, so you could use those for this and then stitch down the ends of the webbing later to finish the strap. Or you can grab your own rivets, which I think is what I'm going to do because I really do want rivets there. So my rivets are not the same size as the ones in the bee box, but only you and I will know that. In the end, no one's going to be able to tell. So I'm going to mark a midpoint and it is about five-eighths of an inch below the fold of the material around the rectangle ring. I'm going to punch a hole through both the gusset and my accent material and then I'll just grab my rivet and stick it in there. And this will just protect that ring so that it just doesn't pull too much on my material and make it wear out. So I got my rivet press and I'm just going to press this in place and there we go. How fun is that? Isn't that cute? It comes together so neat. So I'm going to repeat those steps with the other pieces and my extra rivet, just like I did on this side. I'm going to do it off camera because it's exactly the same steps and I'll meet you back when I'm done. All right. Look at that. Look at that gusset. It's so cool. It's such a cool feature. I just love it. I really do. Okay. I'm going to do one more thing and then we're going to wrap this bag up. So now I'm going to add my personal bag tag to the back panel. So I'm going to choose this panel here to be the back panel and I'm going to measure down about two inches and I'm just going to use some double-sided tape and tape down my bag tag in place. All right. So just like I did with my other bag tag, I'm going to take this to the sewing machine and I'm just going to top stitch along all four edges at an eighth of an inch seam allowance, take threads, pull them to the back and tie them off in a knot. So now let's build the exterior. So I'm going to start with the back panel, lay your back panel right side up, grab your gusset and lay your gusset right side down. We're going to build this similar to how we did the lining except we're not going to increase the seam allowance. We're just going to keep it at a three eighths of an inch seam allowance the entire time. Once again, we're going to match up the midpoint marks on the bottom and then we're going to bring the top left corners together and match those up and then pull the top right corners together and clip those together and then clip as much of the straight edge as you can. You can flip this over. I just find it's easier to look from the back of the main panel. Once again, I'm going to grab my scissors and I do quite a few cuts on this gusset. So I'm just doing quarter inch deep, about half inch apart, all the way around where it's going to connect with that rounded corner and then we're going to push this in and just let that spread around the main panel. So I'm going to repeat with the other corner as well. All right. Once you have it clipped in place, we're going to take it to the sewing machine and we're going to sew along the entire clipped edge at a three eighths inch seam allowance, back stitching at the beginning and the end. I'm going to have the gusset wrong side up. I suggest using a stiletto and a zipper foot and keep your scissors nearby in case you need to get that gusset to spread around those corners a little bit better. All right. Once you have that sewn, just flip it right side out and make sure your corners look okay. If they're a little, um, not super smooth, that's okay. We're going to fix that in a moment, but you just want to make sure you don't have a bunch of pleats or anything or it looks really good. Nice. Now we're going to flip this back and now I'm going to take my scissors and I'm going to start below where my accent is on the side of my gusset and I'm just going to trim the seam allowance in half around the bottom corners and the very bottom edge. So if you're using really thick material like vinyl or, um, faux leather or something that's just pretty dense, I wouldn't suggest cutting down the seam because when you flip this out that might put too much pressure on the threads and if you don't have enough material to hold it, eventually the material itself will just rip around the stitching, but with bonded nylon we're fine. So nice. So now we're going to repeat with the other side. So take your remaining panel, lay it right side up. Take your gusset, lay it right side down. Match up the midpoint marks on the bottom first and clip together and match the top corners together and then cut into the gusset. Remember, we cut in the gusset, not the main panel. Little slits so that it can spread around that corner. Lots and lots of little slits and then just use clips to help you work on getting it exactly where you need it. Okay, once you have it all clipped, once again we're going to sew around the clipped edge at a 3 1⁄8 inch seam allowance, backstitch at the beginning and the end. Once sewn, once again we're going to trim down the seam allowance only on the bottom corners and the bottom edge, not going past the vinyl accents and you can just turn it out once again to make sure it looks right. Yeah, that looks so nice, doesn't it? So nice. So now we need to attach the flaps. You're going to grab your back panel and you're going to lay your back panel right side up and you're going to take your flap and you're going to lay it exterior right side down, lining right side up and you're going to match up the midpoint marks on the top and clip those together and just work your way out from the middle over to the edge. The edge of the flap should get really close to that side seam but it should not go past it. So what I like to do is as I get closer, once I get to that side seam, I'm going to press that seam open with my fingers because in the end I want that seam open anyways and then I'm going to add a clip on the corner of the flap that's also holding that seam open. So I'm going to do this for the other side as well. So you see this is how it should look. So in the end when the flap comes around, it'll go over the front of the bag like that. So now we're going to take this to the sewing machine and let's just baste this top edge of the flap in place and also baste open those seams that are surrounding the flap so that they're nice and flat. Do this at an 8-7 inch seam allowance. Okay. Time to put it all together. So we're going to flip these in the opposite of what they are right now. We're going to flip our lining so our lining is right side out and make sure you open up that zipper in the lining all the way. That's important. Then you're going to flip your exterior so your exterior is wrong side out. Now we're going to insert the lining into the exterior but you want the zipper panel side to be right sides together with the flap so make sure those are on the same space. They're together. Now use the seams to match up these edges so spread the seams of the exterior and lining open with your fingers and use clips to hold these in place. Do this for all four of your seams. You can also use the midpoint marks on the lining and the exterior panels and match those up and clip them together. Then just clip around the entire top edge. It should line up perfectly. Alright. Once you have the entire top clipped in place we're going to take this to the sewing machine and we're going to sew along the top edge at a three-eighths inch seam allowance. Make sure you use a zipper foot and a stiletto. Go slow here and backstitch at the beginning and the end. I'm going to sew from inside the bag to do this. Alright. So now we're going to pull out the lining and then reach your hand into the hole in that lining zipper pocket and then pull out the exterior of the bag through that hole. Now push out all the corners of the exterior and what we want to focus on now is this top seam that we just sewed. We need to topstitch it now. So I'm going to keep my hand in that hole of the zipper pocket and I'm going to use my fingers to press out the seam on the top edge here. Now you can't really press it too much by the flap but everywhere else you can. So I'm just going to pinch it and use clips to hold that seam as flat as possible. Okay. So I've got the edge that I can get clipped clipped and nice and straight. Now for this edge here where the flap is I'm going to zip up the zipper and I'm going to finger press this as flat as I can at that seam and kind of tug on the flap. I'm not going to be looking at my lining when I'm sewing this so I want to make sure that this is nice and flat before I move on. Because at the sewing machine I'm going to look at the exterior so I can kind of pull the material away from the flap while I'm doing that but I won't see what's going on with the lining. So now I'm going to take this to the sewing machine. I'm going to remove the bed off my sewing machine so I can just wrap this around the arm and I'm going to topstitch around this entire top edge of the bag at an eighth of an inch seam allowance. Really go slow here and if you're worried that your topstitching is not going to look good find a thread color like a cream colored one that matches the material and you won't ever even see it. Backstitch at the beginning and the end. All right. So while I was topstitching around that edge feeling really good about this bag I just realized I forgot to topstitch down this accent on the flap and it does need to be stitched in place. So even if I had done it earlier it would still be going through the exterior and the lining. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to do it now. I'm going to topstitch this. I'm going to go over the topstitching that's on the back panel here and I'm going to go down the side of this accent and then I'm going to topstitch right like as close as I can get to that connector and I'm going to topstitch all the way back up until I get to that topstitching and reconnect it. I'm going to do this very carefully and I'm going to use a zipper foot and I'm going to hope for the best. Okay. So as you can see that's not ideal. It's not the ideal way to do it but it does still work so we can move on now. Okay now before we close up the hole in the lining we need to install the other part of our lock and the reason we wait till the very end to install it is because where you want it placed is going to depend on the end of your bag. The type of material you're using might make the lock need to be higher up or lower down. So honestly I would say this is the hardest part. So I'm going to pull my lining out of the bag. So with your bag totally turned out correctly we need to mark placement for our female end of the lock. So this is a pretty big piece of hardware here. So I'm just going to line this up at the top of my bag. Just get a general idea of where we're going to want this. So I'm going to want it right around here. So I'm going to measure from the bottom where my hook is. I don't want to mark anything just yet because I'm not sure this is centered. I'm just going to measure up. It's about two inches up so I want this centered about two inches up. I'm going to fold the top edge here so I can mark the midpoint of the top but I'm not going to use a marking tool. I'm just going to use a clip to mark this. There we go. Then you're going to want to use a bigger ruler to kind of measure from the top to the bottom. So I have about seven inches from the very top edge where the seam is to the very bottom edge is about seven inches. So I said two inches up so that would be five inches. So I'm just going to center this over the top edge and I'm using this ruler so I can make sure it's straight. I'm going to measure five inches down and I'm going to use my pen to just mark a dot right there. This is hard. Now you have a lot of wiggle room here. If it's a little high, a little low, it's going to be totally fine but that, yeah that looks good. That looks good. So I'm going to use my washer. Now my washer might not look like yours if you have the Bag Making Bee Kit. This is one of my own personal washers because I didn't get one. So you're going to take your washer and the first thing you want to do is find where the prongs are going to go in your washer. So for me it's on the very last outer slits of that washer and that's how you know how to center this. So I'm going to center this over that mark and also make sure you know which way the prongs are. So for this one the prongs are on the top and the bottom so I need to make sure my washer is set up like this. It's like height-wise. So I'm just going to line this up and mark on the top and the bottom. Now I'm also going to grab a scrap piece of my faux leather to work as my stabilizer because we do want to stabilize this. If you want to use DecoVille Lite or any other type of stabilizer go ahead and do that but when in a pinch you can always use scraps of faux leather. So now we're going to pull the lining out of the bag because we're not cutting through the lining. We're only going to cut through the exterior. I'm going to grab a seam ripper and very, very carefully we're going to seam rip a teeny tiny slit at those two marks. Super careful. You do not want to lose control of this and end up cutting across your whole panel. Oh my gosh that would break my heart. So now I'm going to just insert the prongs into those slits. They are very skinny prongs so you do not need a big hole at all. Okay. It's hard to tell if it's straight or not because of the way the bag is but we will have some wiggle room here. That looks pretty good. So now I'm going to cut those slits on my scrap piece of stabilizer as well. I'm going to add glue to the back of this metal hardware. You do not have to if you don't want to if you're worried about this kind of moving around while you're getting your bag set up and you don't want to get glue on everything. Don't add the glue but I like to do it and I'm a risk taker. I'm going to add that glue, insert my hand into the hole, very carefully insert the prongs into those slits, and then I'm going to put this inside and I'm just going to feel around for this. If you wanted to turn the bag out in one way or another you could but I can just feel around and get the scrap stabilizer onto the prongs and then I'm going to do the same thing with my washer. I'm just going to push this in the bag and feel around to get the prongs into their spots. There we go. And then I'm going to carefully push down the two prongs so that they are overlapping one another. See, this is what it looks like on the inside and while I have it there I'll just grab my duct tape because you do want to protect the lining so the lining panel is going to rub against that metal hardware and we don't want it to so I'm just going to throw this over there. There we go. Push it down. Alright, now let's make sure it's straight so get your bag all judged out properly. Okay, that looks nice, looks straight, yeah it looks straight and then pull our lock down into place. Yes. And it works, which at the end of the day is the point. We just want it to work. Isn't that darling? Oh my gosh, even with all the mistakes I make, it still turns out so cute. Okay, so let's open up this zipper and pull out the lining of the zipper so we can close up that hole. So pull it all the way out and then straighten out the seams, tuck your fingers into the edges and just pull on them so that the raw edges fold in on themselves and clip along this edge just folding down those raw edges. They should fold down by about a half of an inch, you just don't want any raw bits showing in the end. Now we can take this to the sewing machine and we're just going to sew along this clipped edge at an eighth of an inch seam allowance, backstitch at the beginning and the end. Okay, once you have that stitched, you can push this back into the bag, close it up. How stinking cute is that? You can definitely add a lot of stabilizer to this so it has a really structured, structured look. Just make sure you know it will be a little bit more challenging to go around those corners if you do that. However, you can also use material that's just naturally more structured to assist with that. Okay, last thing we have to do is attach our strap. Like I said, this is not a removable strap, it is a fixed strap. If you wanted to do a removable strap, first thing you would need to make sure you do is you use a D-ring or a triangle ring over here. A removable strap with a rectangle ring is not a good idea because the hook is going to want to go to one of these corners and it's going to twist this and it's going to wear down that material over time. So we're going to do a fixed strap. So the first thing we're going to do is take one end of our webbing and slide it up and over that strap adjuster. I'm going to fold it back by about three quarters of an inch and then wrap it nice and tight around that center bar of our adjuster. And I'm only using rivets here. If you use your rivets on the sides over here and you don't have any other ones, you can just take this to the sewing machine and stitch over this. You can make a little box or you can even just stitch over the folded edge of the webbing. This is not very thick webbing so you shouldn't have any trouble stitching over this, but rivets are easy. So I'm going to just poke a hole in the center of that fold over so I essentially have three layers of webbing here and then I'm going to insert my rivet and I'm going to leave that for now. And now, with my bag standing up, I'm going to take my strap and with my strap fold over of the adjuster up like this, we're going to worm our way down to the very end of our webbing and our webbing is going to go down from the top to the bottom through that rectangle ring. See? So now you're going to wrap the edge of your webbing up and over towards your strap adjuster, over the middle bar, and down the other side. So this is what it should look like now. The strap adjuster is set in place, it has the webbing going through the top of it, and it's wrapped around the top of that other rectangle ring. Coming from the bottom, on the outside you're going to wrap it around to the inside of the remaining rectangle ring, fold it over by three quarters of an inch, and wrap it around that rectangle ring again. Just like this. So it's going to go from the outside, whoop, from the bottom, and around. And then grab your hole punch and punch a hole in the center of this fold over, making sure you're going through all three layers, and then insert your rivet. And before you press this in place, just make sure the strap isn't twisted or anything. See how it's nice and straight, it goes around like that, it looks nice and clean on the sides. Perfect. So now we'll grab the rivet press and we'll just quickly press these two rivets. Easy peasy, I love using rivets for straps, especially when I'm tired and I don't want to sew anymore. And there we go! How beautiful is this? Such a pretty, pretty bag, isn't it? And you can have a lot of fun with this, it's really not that complicated, just don't skip steps like I did, that kills me that I did that, I'm so embarrassed. But it happens, you know? And it doesn't mean the bag's a wash, I didn't have to take it all apart, I just, I just kind of, um, detangled it. I hope you guys love making this. I'm going to be honest with you guys, I haven't been sleeping very well lately, which is what I'm going to blame for the mistakes that were made. I mean, top stitching this accent down on the flap after putting the bag together was not ideal, I really hope that I caught you before you did that and you did not make the same mistake. However, I know some of you guys really like to see when I make a mistake and how I correct it. This, it can happen, sometimes we just forget something and it, I just want to show you that it doesn't mean the bag is like, well, guess that's garbage, we're not going to use this anymore, just throw it away. You can still make it work, is, is it as, as precise as the original one? No. But, it's still a beautiful bag. So I really hope you enjoyed making this bag, it is such a fun shape, such a somewhat quick sew, I wouldn't say it's a super quick sew, but it is a fairly quick sew, especially for a crossbody bag. So if you share your bag on social media, please make sure you tag me, I'm oklaroots everywhere. You also make sure you tag The Bag Making Bee Box if you're using the material from the box and of course Emmaline Bags. And don't forget, check out that community tab on YouTube, I would love to see some of your posts over there, that's going to make it so much easier for me to see things. So please, make sure you use it and let me know in the comments section if you have any questions at all. I hope you're having a great day, have a fantastic rest of your week, get out there and make something. Bye guys!