Free Pattern Friday: Duffle Bag

Welcome to my monthly 'Free Pattern Friday' feature, where I road test a free sewing pattern or tutorial: sometimes a children's one, sometimes an adult's one. I try to publish these posts every first Friday of the month, timed to provide inspiration for those who plan to get their sew on over the weekend. I firmly believe that, if you pick your projects carefully, sewing doesn't have to be a crazy-expensive way to clothe yourself and your family. Thanks to all the amazing pattern designers who have offered up their hard work for us to enjoy for free.

This month I'm sharing a pattern and tutorial that I'm hoping will have fairly broad appeal. I mean, who couldn't use a variety of different sized and shaped bags?! This project was born out of wanting to use up this remnant of pre-quilted fabric. The remnant was rectangular but not very big, so it took me some time to find a project/pattern that would make the most of what I had with very little leftover. Eventually I landed on this duffle bag tutorial by Free-Tutorial.net. Thanks to them for sharing this pattern and tutorial for free. 

(image source: Free-Tutorial.net)

Pattern type:

This project makes a basic, barrel-shaped duffle bag, AKA holdall. The measurements, quantities and step-by-step instructions are found in the blog post, and there's downloadable pattern pages for the circles that form the ends of the bag. There are no sign-ups or checkouts required to access this pattern, just a million distracting adverts and annoying pop-ups to navigate. Thus is the way with some free patterns...

Sizing info:

This bag comes with two sizes for you to choose from: Medium - 13” wide and 8.5” high and Mini – 11” wide and 6” high. I made the medium. However, if you're up for a bit of maths, you could alter the scale on your printer setup when printing the circle pattern pieces, and work out the ratio to alter the rest of the measurements to make different sizes of bag. However, if you wanted a different volume bag but didn't fancy doing the maths, you could simply alter the width of the side panel pieces to make it more or less roomy. 

I'm not sure how useful the mini version would be, although it would be very cute. The medium size seems ok as an overnight bag, or possibly for taking a change of clothes to a dancing class or similar. Although I didn't specifically make this for her, I envision my daughter using this to go to a sleepover at a pal's. 

Fabric info:

The choice of recommended exterior fabric is pretty broad (quilting cotton/canvas/vinyl) because you can then add fusible interfacing if necessary, and you're advised to use a layer of fusible fleece or foam stabiliser for structure. Those more experienced in bag making will probably know more about these products than I! There's no specific recommendation for what to use for the lining. 

For my bag, I was determined to only use what fabrics I already had. As I say, my exterior fabric was pre-quilted, so had a bit of bulk to it already. However, it wasn't very stiff, so I used some plasticised table cloth vinyl to form the lining. I didn't have enough of this in right size so I had to piece together what I had. I'm pretty sure that the table cloth vinyl gives the bag a similar structure to how the fusible fleece or foam stabiliser might work. I'm not sure how it'll hold up long-term, but it works pretty well right now. I also like that it makes the inside somewhat waterproof in case a water bottle or shampoo bottle or something leaks. 

Webbing of non-specified width is recommended for the straps. I bought some organic cotton webbing from James Tailoring. But you could also just make straps from long rectangles of fabric folded twice (like you would double-fold bias binding) and stitched down the edges. 

Findings:

I spent one evening prepping and cutting out my pieces, and another evening actually stitching the bag together. I haven't made a bag like this before, so it was fun to see it come together, which is did pretty quickly. In hindsight, the table cloth vinyl might not have been the best choice for the lining. It was pretty tricky to wrestle into place and can't easily be pinned, and I had/have a fear that it's going to tear. 

As for the pattern itself, the instructions were pretty good with fairly clear photographs showing the various steps, but not for every step that I thought could use one. One thing I found was that the seam allowances were a bit all over the place, 1/4" in some places, 1/2" somewhere else and 3/8" somewhere else. It's a pretty simple make, but a little bit more guidance would make it more beginner friendly. 

The finished bag looks super cute, and this style of bag is a great canvas for lovely fabric. My only real gripe, design-wise, is that I wish there was a tab to hold on to when I unzip the bag. I didn't realise I'd miss that until the bag was complete, and now I can't really be arsed to unpick it and add them. 

Will I make this pattern again?

Possibly! I'd definitely make a similar style bag if not this exact one, simply because I'd like to learn some other methods of bag construction.