Custom Built Purse - Finishing Touches

At this point, I have almost completed my bag. All that is left to do is to join the inside of the bag to the outside. The technique I have decided to use is to join the top edges, and cover the unfinished edges with bias tape for a neat and tidy look.

Custom Built Purse - Making the Cover Flap

To make the cover flap for your bag (my bag is a messenger bag), measure the length that you would like your flap to be. I measured from where I will be attaching it on the back, over the top opening (which the flap will cover) and down to the point I would like the flap to end on the front.

Custom Built Purse - Making the Bag Strap

To make the strap for your bag, cut out two strips of fabric, twice the desired width of your strip, and to the desired length. I cut my strips 2” wide by 48” long. Cut out fusible interfacing the same length and width as your strips, or purchase strap interfacing (I purchased Clover Create-A-Strap with Nancy).

Custom Built Purse - Creating the Liner and Outside of the Bag

The next step that I used to make my bag was to determine the size of the lining that I would require, based on my pocket layout. I know that this way is a bit backwards, most bags require that you create the outside first, and that’s the part I’m creating last, but I wanted to make sure that everything that I wanted would fit in my bag, rather then trying to cram all of my things into a bag.

Custom Built Purse - Zipper Pocket

I love these types of pockets, because you can basically put them anywhere, and they take up very little space on the sides of the pockets.

Custom Built Purse - Elastic Pocket

I wanted a good expandable pocket to store my headphones and ds games in, but I didn't want to have a large opening. The perfect solution was to add an elastic to the opening, which would allow the opening to open fully when I needed it to, but close up to safely keep my things in place.

Custom Built Purse - Accordion Fold Pocket

This is my accordion fold pocket. The folds that are put in the edges allow the pocket to expand, without pushing or stretching any of the fabric. This is good for thicker items, like my cell phone (it's a really old slider phone) or my Nintendo DS.

Custom Built Purse - Simple Pocket

I got the idea for this very simple pocket from my pattern for my ebook reader cover.It's a great pocket for small, thin items like an iPod, pens, pencils, a nail file or a magazine.

Custom Built Purse - Choosing the Fabric

In my post of Wednesday, I explained the first step to making your custom purse, determining the function of you bag and making a basic design.

The next step to making a bag is to decide what fabrics you want to use. I have chosen the following fabrics, the black oval fabric for the Main outside, the striped pattern is for contrast of the outside, the tree pattern is for the inside the zippered pockets and the Asian black work pattern is for the lining of the bag and the inside pockets.

Custom Built Purse - Designing the Bag

Current bag with all of my stuff.

I have a huge problem. Whenever I have to buy a new purse, I can never find one that is large enough for all of what I consider daily necessities. If I do happen to luck out and find one large enough, it is simply a pretty grocery bag that has no pockets and I am simply expected to carry everything all together, which would be horrible for the screens of all my electronics.

Just some of the things I carry on a normal day.