THE IDA BAG TUTORIAL 🪡 | Rosie Caldwell

I'm very excited to share the new pattern I've been working on and that is the Ida bag. I've had this as a pattern for a long time. I used to sell these back in the day when I would sell products I'd made. So let me talk you through the Ida bag. She is nice and small. She has these two short straps at the top. I've added a little bit to the very end of the instruction booklet about how to make this little clip if you want to hold your straps together. I don't think I ended up filming this because that was something I added after the pattern testing phase but it's a very simple little clip at the top. You can choose to make the bag with or without the crossbody strap. If you decide later that you might want to add a strap then I would add the little end tabs with the d-rings so that you can eventually sort the rest of the crossbody strap out but it also looks very cute without the crossbody strap. This is the version I made without the crossbody strap. This is probably the most basic version of the bag so this has no crossbody strap and it's also got none of the pockets inside. It's also got pre-made drawstring ties if you don't want to make the drawstring ties but I think that's one of my favourite parts about the bag is having all of the different straps and ties matching each other but obviously personal preference you can choose to use pre-made ties if you want. I haven't added the option for pre-made straps but if you want to you can again obviously do that too. Bag has a drawstring closure at the top to keep all of your belongings safe and then I'll try and show you the inside. These are the options for the pockets. You have one patch pocket that you can split into two different compartments and then you've also got a little zip welt pocket in there. Even though it's quite a small bag it fits a surprising amount of things in it. I feel like that's a very common theme for my bags. This is made up in a Liberty Tarna lawn and I'd say my favourite fabrics to use for these bags are really crisp cotton so like cotton poplin or quilter's cotton. This one was made up of really nice high quality cotton bedding. These two are more rustic in the fabric. This one's made up in a really nice yarn dyed check from Merchanton Mills and then this one is a block print. This is from The Cloth Shop and honestly I might be biased but I think they look good in any print or pattern or even plain and they're also really fun to jazz up a little bit. Some of my pattern testers embroidered them or added little jewels to make them more of a going out bag so it's a really fun pattern to just have a play with. I'll insert a little video of me wearing it with the crossbody strap. A note on the crossbody strap if you don't want it quite as long then you can reduce it and then obviously if you think you'd want it longer then I would extend the crossbody strap. Also if you're struggling to find the right size hardware you can just use the next size up and size up the strap and the end tabs to fit the inside of your hardware. One very important thing about getting the right structure for this bag is to use the right wadding and I use bag foam and I would not recommend using the normal sort of waddings that I've used in previous bags. This one is a lot more rigid but it's actually very easy to sew with and make sure you get it with one side being fusible because the base is so wide it needs something to hold the structure and normal wadding I've tried making the bag with normal wadding it just doesn't look good as soon as you put anything in the bag it just sort of droops and like misshapes the bag but you can stuff this one full and it stays pretty similar to this so yes fusible bag foam will be your best friend in making this bag and if like me you're sort of new to bag foam then I'm sorry you're gonna be hooked it's quite an addictive thing to sew with so there we go I'm going to get on and show you exactly how to make the Ida bag. As always with my patterns you have two options to print you can either print at home on A4 or US letter paper or you can have it sent off to be printed on a large A0 scale a lot of the pattern pieces are simple rectangles so I've included a no print cut list that you can follow along there's just two pattern pieces two or three that I advise printing because it makes life a bit easier moving on to fabric I've included a material checklist that goes in depth into the best types of fabric to use for the bag and different interfacings and the bag foam another thing to note on your outer fabric it's advised not to choose a directional print so something like this has a print that has a specific direction and if it's upside down it would look wrong the outer part has no seam at the base so it's just one continuous piece of fabric so one side of your bag will end up looking upside down in this video I'm using a nice crisp cotton bed sheet for the outer fabric then for the lining I'm using this quilter's cotton you'll then need some standard interfacing and then you'll also need some bag foam as I mentioned at the start of the video the bag foam is very important for this bag there's also a selection of hardware you might need if you're choosing to make the crossbody strap and the zip pocket then you will need the following hardware you will also need two lengths of 20 centimeters or eight inches of cord that's 0.5 centimeters or a quarter of an inch wide but if you can't find this don't worry it's not the end of the world you can still make the short straps without them we're going to start by making the straps and they follow the same construction method at the start so I like to cut my straps out using my rotary cutter and my long quilting ruler and you're going to cut your outer fabric and some interfacing before you cut out your fabric make sure it's been given a good press so that you're nice and accurate with your cutting of the straps once everything's cut out you can take it over to the iron and fuse the interfacing onto the wrong side of the strap fabric I like to use a scrap piece of fabric to protect my iron and the ironing board from any interfacing that could get stuck to it once you've added your interfacing now we can start folding in the straps you're going to start by folding the strap in half length ways we're then going to fold both of the long edges in to meet that center crease once you've folded all of the edges into the center you can then fold the strap one more time and this will encase all the unfinished edges inside the strap the short straps come as one pattern piece but you'll eventually cut it into two pieces the same goes for the end tabs take your straps over to your sewing machine and we're going to edge stitch that open end closed once you reach the end I like to turn around and do exactly the same stitch but on the other side so just edge stitching down that folded side to match make sure you give the straps a good press afterwards mine sometimes like to twist up a little bit but you can often sort that out with a good press with some steam now grab a ruler or a tape measure and we're going to check the measurements of our straps the cross body strap can just have each end tidied up a little bit but we don't need to take any length off this unless you're wanting to alter it but I would recommend altering right at the end if you think it's going to be too long it's best to have it too long than too short then we're going to take the short strap piece and we're going to cut it into two lengths of 33 centimeters or 13 inches and then we're also going to cut the end tabs so that we have two lengths of six centimeters or 2.5 inches we're now going to add the hardware to the cross body strap so I start off by adding one of the swivel hooks to one end of the strap I tuck the end under by 0.5 centimeters or quarter of an inch and then I fold the rest over past the swivel hook by around two centimeters or three quarters of an inch pin or hold that into place and I take that over to my sewing machine and stitch that end into place I tend to stitch in a very sharp end shape I start where the fold is and then I go diagonally across to just over where the unfinished end is and then I stitch back up encasing that raw edge inside it can be tricky when working with little straps to get them through your sewing machine so I tend to use a rolled up piece of scrap fabric behind at the back of my presser foot and that just helps ease the stitches on now that one swivel hook is stitched on I will add the slider where we folded the swivel hook over previously is technically now the back of the strap so you want the center of that slider to be on show at the back of the strap so go up and over into the slider and then we're going to add the second swivel hook now you'll just need to move the strap out of the way a little bit in the slider so that we can go up and down through the center of the slider so you want to start by going at the furthest away point to where the new swivel hook is and then back down through the center we're then going to turn that unfinished edge under by 0.5 centimeters or a quarter of an inch and stitch to fold down with the same stitch pattern from the previous step you'll want to fold it as close to the slider as you can but still be able to stitch up to it my strap will probably look shorter than yours but that's because i did a shortened version so that it would fit into the frame of this video now that the crossbody strap is constructed we can add the d-rings to the end tabs so just simply fold them through the center of the d-rings and add a few stitches at the bottom now we're going to finish making the short straps so you're going to want to again if you don't want to add the cord into the strap then you don't have to you can still just follow these next steps but simply don't add the cord in the center find the best side of your short straps and that is going to be your right side of the strap then on the wrong side of the strap mark the center point you'll also need to mark the center point on the cord and then we're going to match these center points up taking your clip pins we're going to fold over the strap and hold that cord into place continue pinning along the length of the strap with the cord sandwiched in the middle if you're making this without the cord just simply fold the strap in half once you've pinned all the way along you're going to measure in from each side of the short strap 5.5 centimeters or two and a quarter inches and make a little mark or use a clip as a marker this is an important measurement so that you have equal lengths of the strap at either end and it's where we're going to start and end stitches we're going to take the strap over to the sewing machine and change to a zip foot and we're going to stitch along the top down the side by 0.5 centimeters or a quarter of an inch and then back up that other 5.5 measurement side then just repeat to the other side and now you have your two short straps ready to assemble then go ahead and change your sewing machine foot because we won't need the zip foot again for a while and give the short straps a good steam press and there we go you have your two little short straps ready to add when they're needed now we're going to move on to the main part of the outer bag so to start with we're cutting the outer and the bag foam larger than the paper pattern piece because there will be a lot of shrinkage when we quilt this you don't have to quilt bag foam you can just leave it as it is but i like to add a little bit extra and i think it just adds a nice bit of interest to the bag before you fuse your outer fabric to your bag foam just make sure there are no creases left in that fabric because they will be very hard to get out once they've been fused to the bag foam i like to mist my fabric down with some water before i iron it if it's got lots of creases in it i then lay my fabric on top of the fusible side of the bag foam and give it a good press bag foam can take a little while to fuse onto the fabric so you have to be quite patient with this step just take it nice and slowly you don't want to pucker any of the fabric whilst you're fusing it because it will get stuck and it's quite hard to take off now that you've got your outer fuse to the bag foam you can start planning your quilted design i like to stitch diagonal lines creating little crisscrosses and i have a gap of three centimeters between each line once i've marked out my design i take it over to my sewing machine and stitch it on i start out with a few guidelines and then i have this foot that helps me guide the same distance from my previous stitch line these are easy to find on ebay or etsy if you're interested in getting one just type the model of your machine in and it usually comes up with something suitable once you finish your quilting give it a good press and then we can take it back over to the cutting table place the paper pattern piece back on top make sure to line up the print and the quilting so i folded the paper pattern piece in half and matched up the quilting design down the center i then placed paper weights on top of the pattern and traced around with a thin pencil after i traced around the pattern i then took my long quilting ruler and my rotary cutter and cut the shape of the outer where it indents in the center i do find it easier to use some sharp fabric scissors here and then the only notches i physically mark on this pattern are the base center notches on the main body outer piece now we have the main body of the bag ready to construct so the first step is to add the short straps using the main body pattern piece we're going to locate the short strap placement notches then this is the right side of the strap and this is the wrong side and we're going to have the right sides of the strap and the outer facing and we're going to pin the ends of the short strap in between those short strap placement notches repeat to the other side and then we're going to go and stitch across with a 0.5 centimeter or quarter of an inch seam allowance just holding the straps into place once we've got the short straps into place we're going to fold the main body in half and match up the side seams pin those into place and we're going to stitch down the sides with the usual one centimeter or three-eighths of an inch seam allowance once you stitch down both side seams we're going to take them over to the ironing board and place them on the end and open up the seams bag foam has a bit of a mind of its own and you do have to really force it to do certain things it doesn't love being pressed but try and press open the side seams once you've stitched the side seams we're then going to match the bottom center of that side seam with the base center notch match those two together finding your boxy corners and clip pin that into place repeat on the other side and then we're going to take it over to the sewing machine we're just going to stitch across the base with the usual seam allowance and when you reach the center just make sure all of the seam allowance is open this helps reduce bulk in the final product of the bag the bag is now starting to take shape you can see the nice boxy corners at the bottom there now we're going to add the end tabs to the center of each side seam clip pin them into place making sure the seam allowance is open the side seams and we're just going to roughly stitch those on to hold them on if you're not doing the cross body strap then you can skip this step next up we're working on the drawstring top section we're going to find our two drawstring top sections and we're going to place them right sides together we're going to pin the sides into place and then we're going to take note of where we need to stop stitching this is where the hole for your drawstring ties are going to go and so that will also be the top of the drawstring bag so take note of this if your fabric has a specific direction or print i like to mark off the notches with pencil just so i know where to start and stop we're going to stitch with a two centimeter or three quarters of an inch seam allowance and you'll want to stitch all the way down but make sure to leave a gap between those notches repeat to the other side and then we can take that over to the ironing board first thing we need to do is press open those side seams you'll then want to turn all of the unfinished edges under by one centimeter take the drawstring section over to your machine and we're going to edge stitch along those folds this will give you a really nice clean side seam with no unfinished edges on show give your side seams a good press check that you've got your holes for your drawstring ties to go through now we're going to start folding over the top of the drawstring section you'll want to have the wrong side of the drawstring bag facing you and we're going to fold over one centimeter from the top all the way around i do the one centimeter by eye but then the next fold is 2.5 centimeters or one inch from the top and i like to use my ruler for this i usually start by pressing the side seams down and then the rest of the fabric tends to follow a similar fold i then like to turn it so that the right side is facing you when you're sewing and i'm going to edge stitch all the way around the bottom of that fold she's so crazy then you're going to follow with a parallel row of stitches 0.5 centimeters away from that previous stitch line and when you go over the side seams make sure you add some back stitching just to reinforce that area of the drawstring that's the drawstring top section ready to go for now we'll make the drawstring ties later on now we're going to move on to making the lining so i'm going to start by making the pockets for the lining if you're not making the pockets then you can skip along a little bit so for the welt zip pocket we're going to add the interfacing at the top of the pocket bag then you'll need to trace off the welt pocket opening i like to just fold the pattern piece over take note of where the top is and then go from there and measure the welt opening once you've marked the welt pocket opening you can use the notches noted on the main body lining piece and we're going to line up the top of the welt pocket bag and pin this to the main body lining piece with right sides together we're then going to shorten our stitch length and we're going to stitch all the way around the welt pocket opening before i cut into the opening i press the bottom of the pocket bag up and the top of the pocket bag down just to give you a little bit of a line to guide you this just helps when you turn the pocket bag through in the next step cut through both layers of fabric down the center of the welt pocket opening and then i like to take my little snips and just cut into each corner but make sure you don't cut into the stitches then push all of that pocket bag through to the wrong side of the main body lining and push it all out so that you've got a nice rectangular opening if you've got a lot of puckers in the corner then it may be that you need to go back and snip into the corners a little bit more but we're then going to take it over to the ironing board and press so that we've got a really nice rectangular opening for the zip to sit in we're then going to take our 13 centimeter or 5 inch zip and place it in the welt opening with the right sides of the zip and welt pocket together pin the zip into place so it's not moving anywhere and this is where i forgot to add my label but it wasn't too late i could go in and add it we then want to change back to a zip foot and we're going to edge stitch all the way around that welt pocket opening holding the zip into place take this nice and slowly because zip has tendencies to move around we're now going to take that pocket bag and fold it in half so that the bottom is now meeting the top i'm going to stitch all the way around the sides and the top of the pocket bag when you're stitching it you'll need to hold the main body lining piece out of the way and also remember to change back to your usual sewing machine foot once you've stitched all the way around you can then attach the top of the pocket bag to the top of the main body lining just edge stitching along the top there holding all three layers together moving on to the patch pocket start by having the wrong side of the fabric facing you we're going to fold the top down by one centimeter and then we're going to fold it by another two centimeters and edge stitch along that open edge taking it back over to the iron we're going to fold up the bottom by one centimeters or three-eighths of an inch and then we're going to do the same to both sides using the main body lining piece we're going to find the placement for the patch pocket pin it into place and we're going to edge stitch all the way around the sides of the pocket excluding the top and then you're going to want to follow with a parallel stitch line of one centimeter or three-eighths of an inch around the sides and bottom following that previous stitch line you can choose to have one big pocket or you can do as i've done and add a center stitch line giving you two little pockets now that the pockets are done we can construct the main body of the lining so you want to place both pieces right sides together and pin the side seams and at the bottom we're going to stitch down the side seams and along the bottom with the usual seam allowance but at the bottom you'll need to leave quite a big gap of around 14 centimeters or five and a half inches because the bag needs a lot of space to be turned through at the end so once we've stitched those seams take it over to the ironing board and open up all of those seams we're then going to match the bottom of the side seam with the base both in the center pin them together and we're going to stitch across those so now we've got the main body lining we've got the main body and we've got the drawstring top section all ready to be constructed so we're going to start by turning the drawstring top section to have the wrong side facing you and the top is going to be facing down we're going to place that over the top of the main body piece and you're going to match up the side seams to start with and then pin all the way around we're then going to have the main body lining with the wrong side facing you and we're going to place the main body and drawstring section inside the lining again matching at the side seams and then matching all the way around take it over to your machine and we're going to stitch with the usual one centimeter or three-eighths of an inch seam allowance all the way around the top make sure when you're stitching all the way around that the short straps are facing down into the base of the bag inspect your stitching and see if it looks straight then we're going to turn the bag the right way around and check the stitching again to check we've got a nice straight line going all the way around the top this next step is a bit fiddly and not completely necessary so feel free to skip it so i turn the bag back inside out and i find both base seams and then i fold both of these on top of each other and i match up seam allowances and i try as hard as i can to stitch on the seam allowance holding both base seams together you could always do this by hand just stitching some of the corners together in the seam allowance all this does is hold the lining in the base of the bag but because it's such a small bag it's not going to matter too much then just turn the bag the right way around again and we're going to close up that hole in the lining i like to hold the pieces together with pins and then i just edge stitch along that open seam closing it up okay we're on the home straight now now we're moving on to top stitching the next bit of pressing is very important we're going to put it on the edge of our ironing board we're going to have the short straps end tabs and the drawstring section pointing up away from the bag but the lining is going to be sat inside the bag and you'll also want to push all of the seam allowance around the top inside the bag press all the way around and then we're going to fold the drawstring top section inside the bag and go ahead and press again and then we're going to fold the bag inside out and again press around the top check that it's all looking nice and flat around the top then we're going to take it over to the sewing machine and top stitch 0.5 centimeters or a quarter of an inch away from the top of the bag so the drawstring top will be sat inside the bag and the straps and the end tabs will be facing out of the bag take this step nice and slowly because you want it to be as neat as possible when you meet the side seams it can be quite hard to stitch through if your sewing machine is refusing just ignore the side seams and start and stop before and after the end tabs or you could try the trick with the rolled up piece of scrap fabric behind the presser foot just to guide the stitches along i find it easier to do the top stitching with the bag inside out hit the bag back over to the iron and give it a good little steam where you've just stitched we're so nearly done all that's left to do now is make the drawstring ties this is just following the same method we used for making the straps folding in half then folding into the center and folding in half again this time because they're so slim we'll just stitch down one edge and give them a good press before threading them into the bag so when we thread the drawstring ties we're going to go in from one end out the other side and then back in so that the tie comes out the same place that it came in you'll then repeat exactly the same thing to the other side i like to spend a little bit of time trying to make sure the ties aren't too twisted inside the channel and then i will just tie the ends into a knot trim any excess and then i seal the ends with some clear nail varnish but equally you could stitch the ends closed in a french seam style you will want to chop off a bit of excess i just add a little bit of length to make it a bit easier to thread them now what is left to do is add the cross body strap to the end tabs and your eider bag is finished i have included a little bit in the pattern for how to make a little clip to hold the short straps together if that is of interest um i didn't end up filming that little section i love making the eider bag it's a very satisfying make because it comes together pretty quickly and i really hope you guys have fun making your eider bags so there we go that is how you make the eider bag there are instructions in the booklet on how to make the little clip to hold the short straps together very simple little clip you could even just make a little tie if you have leftover drawstring ties it's just another little tiny aspect that you can add into the bag i've already seen so many adorable little eider bags being made by my pattern testers and i just know there's going to be so many more good ones to come so please do let me know if you make one i'd love to see an image sent my way on instagram once you've made one eider bag it's quite hard not to make another and they make perfect presents for birthdays or christmas so yeah i hope you guys enjoy the pattern as much as i do and i will see you in my next video