Voodoo Rabbit Fabric: Notting Hill Mod Bag

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Notting Hill Mod Bag

Just over a month ago we asked for help with our Mod Bag Dilemma. The favourite fabric combo by far was the Notting Hill Primrose option, which was fortunate as it was our favourite too. They were made for each other - the design is more than a bit 60's and well... Mod :)

Difficulty

The Mod Bag is an advanced pattern, this is mainly because it has a gusset. Inserting the gusset is the trickiest part of this design, especially the topstitching of said gusset. The first side is not so bad but attaching and topstitching the second side requires all sorts of interesting manoeuvring to get it through the sewing machine.

I sewed this bag on a basic Brother PS-55 mechanical sewing machine using only the standard foot. Having a needle down option on your sewing machine would be a great help with the topstitching of the gusset to avoid having stitches going astray as you try to wrangle the fabric through the machine.

Options

The Mod is the little sister to the Carry All bag and like the Carry All comes with a lot of optional bells and whistles. I decided to keep it fairly simple and just go with the belt, magnetic closure, o-rings, internal zippered pocket and internal divided pocket. The contrasting belt really makes this bag stand out from the crowd. I would have preferred a slightly larger and simpler belt buckle but they can be quite difficult to find.

Interfacing

As per the Small Tote bag I have used medium-heavy fusible woven interfacing paired with H630 wadding to give the bag structure without being too stiff. The medium-heavy interfacing is one of the trickier interfacings to fuse so I recommend you read through Nicole's Tips for Using Interfacing and Troubleshooting Interfacing before you start. Nicole is a fount of knowledge on interfacing and I picked up a lot of tips from these two article which have vastly improved my bag making skills simply by changing the way I fuse my interfacing and wadding.

The fabric choice combined with the interfacing and wadding make this one of my favourite bags that I have sewn. It is a good sized bag for everyday use. Not overly big but still large enough to carry everyday essentials while you are out and about.