Man Bag - A Present For My Dad

For my Dad's birthday, I had bought him a book which he had wanted for ages. However, it was the day before his birthday and it still hadn't arrived (despite ordering it almost two weeks in advance). I was quite upset at the prospect of turning up empty handed so I decided at 8pm that night (as all sane people do) I would make a quilted cartridge bag. I sewed my butt off into the early hours of the morning (as all sane people with work at 7am the next morning do) and by 3am it was almost complete. It turned out a bit larger than I had anticipated and it looked a bit too much like a handbag.

Despite my concerns my Dad loved it, and even took it on holiday with him the following week with some kind of fishing apparatus in! I was so pleased that he liked it so much, it isn't perfect but the construction contained many firsts for me.

As you can see from the outside, there is brown piping round the edges. I had never used piping before and I am now a big fan. It was simpler than I thought and gives structure and a nice looking finish. The green fabric is some sort of canvas type stuff, I didn't buy it so I couldn't say what it is exactly.

On the inside the bag is lined in a heavy brown cotton twill type fabric. Again, I didn't buy it so I don't know what the retail name for it is. As the bag was full of fishing paraphernalia when I took the photos I don't have a picture of the quilted inside. This was another first. Not a difficult thing to do, but I wasn't the neatest and my diamond shapes are uneven. The wadding I used was a bit too thick for the job as well. I ran out of bias tape to trim the edges of the bag opening so when I put the quilted inner piece inside the green outer piece, I just folded the green edge over, and over again to hide the raw edges and top stitched it together.

You can see a peek of the strap, I just stitched a length of the bias tape onto some of the green fabric, this was done before I thought about wanting to trim the edge of the bag opening - silly me! Although in my defence it was into the am hours at this point!

I have now been requested to make another one in black and pink for Gemma (my step mum) so I will get some better photos and take some of the inside of the bag. This will be getting on for Xmas time though so keep an eye out in December.

Have you ever made a man bag? I'd love to hear about other adventures into masculine bag sewing!