I made a leather sailor's ditty bag - or at least my interpretation of one as I usually make them in 18oz cotton duck. The hardest part, I found, was stitching the circular bottom into the tubular bag. (I'll try and dig out pictures of the one I made). In the end I fudged it by folding the outside edge down, trimming in slits and stitching it in place. It kind of worked but looked not so good. Any ideas how to achieve a better way at this would be hugely appreciated. Thank you.
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Hi,
You could maybe make another gusset and add the bottom to that. Similar to the bag down below but you'd use the technique on the bottom instead of on the sides.
You need one extra pattern for this. A strip with no extra seam allowance on one side (which would be lined up with the bottom of the bag) and extra seam allowance on the other side (5/10 mm). Connect the outer edges making the strip into a circle.
The round pattern (bottom) should also have an extra 5/10 mm seam allowance. You sew this circle to the strip first (seam allowance to seam allowance) and then place this gussett in the bottom. ps: make sure you skive the seam allowance, otherwise it pushes the bag out of shape.
I hope this makes sense, kind of difficult to explain!
Thanks, everybody. Wet forming seems to be the next thing for me to try.
Great advice Terry! I think that's the way to go!
Any other ideas guys??
Phil
The last bucket bag I made I skived the bottom edge, wet it just a little and formed it into the body. I marked the stitching holes around the bottom of the body before creating the tube. After fitting the bottom into the body, the stitching was pretty straight forward. I don’t have a good picture of the bottom under construction but this will give you some idea.
Yes, there isn't going to be an easy way to stitch this from the inside by hand. Have you thought of wet moulding the base over a circular wooden form? If you're working with vegtan, that might be an idea worth looking into.
Phil
This is the bag I made. It's based on a canvas sailor's ditty bag which I make inside out, stitching the bottom in place, then turning right side out. With the leather I found I couldn't turn it inside out and do the required stitch so had to come up with an alternative method - one which I bodged together in my head.
My bucket bags (and gussets) improved dramatically when I embraced math to figure out what size to make things. I make all my own patterns and was struggling to get bucket bag bottoms to fit properly. Once I started calculating the circumference of the bottom ( c = pi x diameter) and then cutting my sides the right length, everything started to fit better and was much easier to put together and stitch.
Hey Mathew,
Yeah, definitely going to need some pictures of the project so that we can best advise. I think I know what you mean but i'll need to see it to be sure.
Cheers,
Phil