The Butterfly Bag - FINISHED!

I got a pretty late start today, again, but I really want to finish this little bag.  All that’s left are the casings and the straps, so I thought, surely I could do that in a short amount of time.

After making the buttonholes last night, the front casing was ready to sew onto the front of the bag.  I found that even though I measured the hem I took up on the casing, it didn’t fit all the way across the top of the bag.  So I sewed a gathering stitch around the top of the bag to ease it all together. 

This worked out really well.  Once it was sewn on, I turned it to the outside, pressed it over, and stitched along the top and under the buttonholes – I stitched that from the inside so I could stitch in the ditch of where it was attached.

The back casing was much easier – I still had to gather it a bit, but thankfully, no buttonholes!

Now the straps.  It’s funny, I have never seen a pattern piece that says “CUT 3” before!  This is because the back strap goes through just the back casing and is stationary, but the front strap is 2 pieces sewn together to make it long- then it is run through the front casing, with the top loop of it to stay as long as the back strap, and the ends come out the buttonholes to be tied into a bow.

So I won’t bore anyone with the details of the straps – they are pretty easy to figure out, but here is the finished bag with the straps!

It came out really cute and I think Layla is going to love it!

Now – what to do next?