A Bicycle Bag

Last post you read about the cookies and tea bags MVB made for HG's birthday. For MVB's birthday, her mom commissioned me to make a handlebar bike bag. We talked for ages about the style MVB might like and what kinds of fabrics she would enjoy. Finally we settled on a pattern I bought on Etsy and some forest green fabric by Unison, complemented by a perfectly matching turquoise paisley which I found at my local fabric shop.

This is one snappy looking bag, I think. The straps on the back loop around the handlebars and are secured by D rings which you can see above. Inside the bag is a covered section, which is cinched closed by ribbon. The handles enable you to take the bag for a walk after you're done with your ride.

The pattern to make this bag was not easy to follow. While I could now make another one with greater ease, I found the directions for this to be completely non-intuitive. They also used an enormous amount of glue, which I thought was very weird for a sewing pattern. I chose to sew instead of glue. At several points I was sewing along only to realize I had done something backwards or inside out and the pieces I was making would not fit together. I even had to start over and cut out new fabric early on because it was faster to do that than to take out a huge number of incorrectly placed stitches. This was all before my new machine as well. My old machine is less precise and therefore some of the pieces did not come out as evenly as I would have hoped. But you probably can't tell from the photos, so that's good. Still, I'm not going to link to the pattern because I can't recommend it.

The bag is also a little floppier than I might have liked. I used the firmest interfacing (that's the stuff you put in between layers of fabric, usually to make them heftier or stronger) I am aware of, but it's still not a stiff bag.

If MVB's mom has a photo of the bag in use I could post it. Want to send me one?