Raspberry Tardis

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• Step 1

  First off, decide the measurements of your bag. I wanted a bag with about a 5" diameter at the base. This diameter will create a circle with a circumference of about 16 inches - which will be the length of your side piece. The height can be whatever you wish, but it's best to keep it tall enough to hold your supplies. I use primarily circular and DPNs so my bag ended up being about 6.5 inches tall.

• Step 2

  Measure your pieces and cut them out.
  3 bottom pieces - (mine were 5" around) one in main color, one in contrasting color, one in interfacing.
  3 side pieces - (mine were 16 x 7 - mustn't forget the seam allowance!) one in main color, one in contrasting, one in interfacing.
  1 top panel (to make drawstring closure - mine was 16" x 7") in contrasting color.
  2 handle pieces - (mine were 14" x 2") one in main color, one in contrasting color.
  1 handle piece - just a hair smaller than the fabric handle pieces (mine was 13.5" x 1.5").
  Pockets - as many as you want! But, they should be no taller than the height of your bag, and total no more than your bag circumference all together. (Mine were kind of a hodge-podge of sizes - I think I just cut several pieces approximately the sizes I wanted and slapped them in willy-nilly.)

  **Pro Tip! If you plan on making more than one of these I highly recommend taking the extra time to draft these pattern pieces out on paper first and using your shiny new pattern to cut out your bag components. This way you'll save yourself a ton of heartache trying to recreate your pattern after your knitty/hooker friends see your sweet new bag and beg you to make one for them! Like Jack Nicholson says in "As Good As It Gets": "Don't be like me!")

• Step 3

  Sew your body and base interfacing pieces to each other using a basting stitch as close to your material edge as possible (this helps keep those fiddly pieces in place when you're dealing with them later).

• Step 4

  Pin the body and base pieces you just basted the interfacing to together. The long edge of your rectangle should fit all the way around the circumference of your base circle. If it's too long, no worries - just trim off the extra. If it's too short, unpin it all and cut down your base circle to fit the body rectangle. Once you have the pieces fitting properly, un pin it all again, sew the ends of your body rectangle together to form a cylinder then repin the edge of that cylinder to your base circle then sew it all together.

  At the end of all this, you should have what looks like a cylinder with one closed end, one open end, your main color on the outside and interfacing on the inside. Woo hoo!

• Step 5

  Now for your bag liner:
  Assemble and fix your pockets along the length of your contrasting color rectangle. I ended up with two largish pockets( for patterns or circular needles), one scissor pocket (that, during the creation of a scissor-shaped pocket ended up having two oddly-shaped pockets that hold crochet hooks) and one long narrow pocket that I envisioned would hold pencils and the like (but really holds kinda whatever). This is kinda the place where you can frolic freely with things - make a bunch of super specific pockets (so long as they fit the circumference of your bag) or thumb your nose at pockets all together. The world is your oyster, my friend! But, if you want pockets, add them here.

  When you place them you should keep the pocket tops well below the bag top (otherwise the stuff in them could give you problems when closing your bag). I placed the pocket bottoms close-ish to the bag bottom (about 3/4 to 1" from the fabric edge).

• Step 6

  Sew the liner bottom to the liner rectangle (be careful to have the pocket side of your liner fabric facing inward - your rough seam should end up on the "wrong side" of the work... that is the side of the work that will not be visible when everything has been assembled!)

• Step 7

  Now, stuff your assembled bag liner - with pockets facing toward the bag interior and your interior liner seams all facing the interfacing portion of the bucket body - into the bucket you made with the main fabric and interfacing. Pin the top edges together and set aside for now.

  OMG! You're halfway done!!!

• Step 8

  Now, sew the narrow edges of your drawstring top channel together to create another floppy cylinder. Then, whip out your buttonholer and sew two little buttonholes in about 3/4 of the way down from what will become the edge that houses your drawstring channel (my buttonholes were about 1/2 inch tall). For aesthetics I placed mine across from the seam created when I sewed the two narrow edges together to form a cylinder.

  You can make these holes with grommets, or just finish the very top edge of your channel in a fancy way that I am not familiar with. For me, it was easier to make buttonholes.

• Step 9

  Fold and sew your drawstring channel. I folded about .25" of the raw edge down first - pressed it with my iron, then folded down about 1.5" of material to make my channel. That way when someone looks at my bag they don't have to look at all the raw edges unravelling. ;)

• Step 10

  Now, this part can get tricky. You want to pin your drawstring top to the top of your bucket bag and liner. You want your drawstring holes to end up on the outside of the bag and your solid drawstring channel to end up on the inside of your bag. So... you'll need to line up the remaining raw edge of your drawstring cylinder to the raw top edge of your bucket. You'll want the side you want facing the exterior (the side with your buttonholes/grommets/whatever) visible when you're sewing (on the "wrong side") and the side with the drawstring channel facing the inner liner of your bag (the "right side"). Capice?
  Good, now pin all that together and get your bias tape ready.

• Step 11

  To save me heartache, I decided to use bias tape to make a pretty edge. I was also able to use the rest of the packet of bias tape to make a coordinating drawstring.

  Embrace the bias tape! Love it!

  So, apply bias tape to your top bucket edge however you like to do so... just make sure all the raw edges of each component of your bag is secured in the bias tape.
  Many people love the double seam bias tape method, but I think for this bag I just - carefully - pinned the bias tape over the raw edge and sewed it all into place. (I was feeling lazy at the time... the double seam method makes a nicer finished product, but I wasn't so worried about that considering the project was just for me.)

  If you decide to use bias tape as your drawstring, now would be a good time to cut an appropriate length (several inches longer than your bag circumference - I think my drawstring was about 24") and sew down the center of the folded bias tape to make a skinny cord.

• Step 12

  Thread your drawstring through your drawstring channel, thread your decorative bead on the end and start filling your new project bag!

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