Love You To The Moon & Back {of your chair}

Well hello there lovelies! Today I'm bringing you some more chair cuteness.

 Now I always like to start out with warnings. If you are a professional sewer, you should probably leave now. I don't want to be responsible for derailing any professional training you've had. :) But no seriously...stick around. I love better tips and tricks.

This past Halloween I did a tutorial over on She's {Kinda} Crafty for my Felt Pumpkin Chair Back.  Pottery Barn Kids  is where my initial chair decor inspiration comes from. 

I think these are fun. And in all honesty, they aren't that expensive at PBK that I felt people were priced out of them. I just wanted to give it a whirl and also my dining chairs aren't conducive to those sold commercially.  But I digress.

I decided to make some new ones for Valentine's. I thought it would be sweet if on February 1st, I left a love note a day in them for my kids. Maybe a little chocolate{assuming I didn't eat it on the way to drop in the letter}. And really they came out ready for year-round desk organization. Useful for keeping books handy or the week's homework in one place. So I decided I'd go with a dimensional letter shape. Plus it seemed not out of my realm. And that is the most important part because I'm still learning to sew. And by learning to sew I mean you can find me at the end of a project with band-aids on every finger for sticking myself over and over with straight pins. I am constantly sticking my fingers blindly into a container of them and coming out with them sticking out of me. I know there are such things as pin cushions, but I don't want to take the easy way out. ;)

None the less, this project was a great learning experience for me. It basically comes down to making a lined rectangular tote with a flap. I did my son's and daughter's both different ways and I'll cover both methods, but start with the most detailed one first. I tried to be as detailed as possible for entry level sewers like myself.

I started out by sketching what I wanted to accomplish overall. Made up some dimensions and went to it. I ended up leaving out the top slot because I got ahead of myself on the first one and forgot about it. Maybe next time.

Materials:
A half a yard of each fabric is more than enough for one chair backer.
Outer Fabric: I used duck cloth for the outer material. Anything a little heavier than quilting cotton would suffice.
Inner Fabric: Just normal quilter's grade cotton will do.
One-sided fusible interfacing.
Coordinating thread
Two Buttons for each backer {depending on how you plan to finish your straps off}.
Ric Rac, Ribbon, decorative buttons, et cetera for outer decoration (optional).

{Outer shell and lining shown here. Interfacing now pictured}

For the red bag, I chose to construct the rectangular box with panels. Each panel takes into account .5" seams. Some of the measurements I used initially ended up being cut down later as I decided how long I wanted the straps and flat enclosure. 

Measurements for Outer shell, inner shell, & interfacing{NO INTERFACING required for straps}. Feel free to use this as a guide and adjust for your needs. Just keep in mind to leave .5inch for seams.
Front/Back Panel: 13.5in X 10in
Left/Right Side Panel: 3.5in X 10in
Bottom Panel: 13.5in X 3.5in
Flap Enclosure: 13.5in X 9.5in
{I ended up taking off 2.5-3" off this in the end so it would sit a little higher upon closing}
Straps: 22in X 4in
{I wound up cutting these down in the end to 17" to fit my needs on my chairs, but I wanted to pin and see how things hung before I decided the final measurement.}

The first thing you want to do is iron on your interfacing shiny sound down to the wrong side of all your outer shell fabric{in this case the solid red duck cloth}.

Before you begin attaching your panels together, you want to go ahead and notch your bottom panel. Cut out a little .5in square from each corner. This applies to both the outer shell and inner lining. This will make sewing your pieces together much easier.

I found it easier to work in this order. Pin the front and back panel to the bottom panel.  You don't necessarily have to pin them both at the same time, but it makes the process go a little faster. Just fold everything down when sewing each side. It's nothing more than putting two right sides together and sewing down the edges. You're just going to do it for both long sides of the bottom panel. Your right sides should all be facing one direction and as you can see I'm pinning wrong sides facing out. When I took this photo, I had already sewed down the front panel side and the other side is still pinned and ready to go. You are going to sew .5" seams {I just used the guides on the machine, no ironing necessary}. SEW DOWN ONLY to the end of the notched bottom panel. {See diagram below}

This is how it looks when these first three panels are seamed.

Next you are going to pin your side panels to the bottom panel and sew only to the end of the notch on the bottom panel. You can see how I turned it right side out and pinned. You are going to sew it just like this on each end. 

And once they are sew on..if you flipped it right side out, it would look as such.

Now all that is left to do is to sew all the side seams together. However, choose a side and leave about a 4-5" opening down one of the side seams. You will need this to turn the whole thing inside out. I myself forgot to do this on the lining and had to do it during construction around the top. It's best to use the lining for the opening as it's 1)easier to fold in the lining sides and top stitch that portion and 2)No one will really ever notice. And now you have your formed lining.  I like to go back and trrim some of the excess off, but skip the edge of your open seam. 

Do the same thing with your outer shell and ta da! Now if you wanted to embellish the outer shell in some way, you'd want to do that before you stitched your panels together. {I will show you that for the pink version}. It's also easier to go ahead and affix your buttons on the back beforehand as well. Just makes them easier to sew on. I waited until this point to sew them on.

Here are the buttons on the back side. If you didn't want to do a button hole on the straps, you would simply substitute with Velcro or you could install metal snaps instead. Or simply attach some pretty ribbon to both the back of the bag and the straps and tie them together. Feel free to be creative. I wanted to try out the button hole maker on my machine for the first time. 

Next up is your envelope flap. I left my son's version simple and rectangular. I did add some ric rac for the horizontal flap edge in front. I did this by pinning the ric rac across the right side of the fabric so that the center of it was about where my seam would hit.

Then simply pin the lining with right sides together.Sew around three edges {Front edge and sides leaving back edge open}. Once finished, turn inside out and sew top stitch around the same three edges. It's helpful to iron it before top stitching around edges. I used 1/8th top stitch. 

For my daughter's flap, I decided to make it look more like the traditional envelope flap. 

Next you'll want to get your straps ready. I apparently forgot to take pictures of this part. One way to do it is the fold your strips in half lengthwise. Iron to create your center. Then fold each side in to meet the edges in the middle. Iron everything down again. Fold in half, iron again. Then take your strips to the sewing machine and top stitch around all the edges. I was lazy and simply folded them in half, sewed and then had to deal with turning them inside out, ironing and top stitching. It doesn't save you any time to do it this way and the first method comes out neater in my opinion and even with the ironing, is probably more efficient. 

If you used buttons, you'll need to sew button holes into your straps. Every machine is different so I will leave that part up to you and your machine instructions. I ended up putting two different heights into my straps so that I could have them tighter on the kid's play chairs or longer for hanging on my dining chairs like a backpack. Simple pin your straps to your outer shell and try out different attachment lengths, mark one of your straps and measure it out to duplicate onto your other strap. 

So now that you have all your pieces, it's time to assemble! The best part. The light at the end of the tunnel. 

Your outer lining at this point needs to be right side out as you would expect to see it displayed. I buttoned my straps on to keep them from moving around. You're going to pin the other end of your straps to the outer top of the bag lining them up edge to edge. Do not fold them over or in. Next you'll attach your flap right sides together with lining facing you as pictured above. 

Now you're going to take this entire assembly and drop it into your lining which will be inside out. 

It should look like this. Pin around all the edges and take it to your sewing machine. Sew a .5" seam all around the edges. {This is why it's important for you to have left a side seam with an opening.}.

You can see the open seam on my second bag. I'm going to switch over to that bag to show you the final steps.

Once you're done sewing around all the edges you are going to pull the inside bag out through the hole in the lining.

This is how it should look on the front side once turned out through the opening.

Backside

Sew the opening in the lining closed by folding the outer edges in and pinning. Then simply do a close top stitch across the opening. 

Push the lining inside and work your way around the edges pushing it in below the outer shell and pinning. Then simply do a 1/8 or so top stitch around the edges to give it a finished look. You're DONE!

Now I mentioned before an alternate way to put together the bag. I will cover that quickly. It's a much quicker method and yields just about the same squared shape.

Assuming your material is long enough, the best way is to cut on the fold {material folded in half} that enable you to halve the measurements and have one less side to seam up.

Before I ironed on my interface, I decided to add some decor to the front side of my daughter's chair back pack. From the fold I eyed how far up I'd want the detail to be. I did a large white ric rac and a smaller red ric rac and then attached a light pink ribbon {using a lighter to seal the edges once cut to avoid fraying}. I thought the ribbon would be cute for attaching little tags if I kept it in her room year round.

I would up using a little wooden scalloped round and some Valentine's washi tape.  I did a light sanding to the tape and then stamped on top with an "S" to personalize it.

Same as before, iron on your fusible interface. Now for the easy part. Remove anything dangling if you attached a tag. Fold your outer shell with right sides facing in and interfacing out. Pin and straight stitch .5" seams down both sides.

When you're finished, you're going to pinch the corners as pictures

Lay your pinched edge down on your mat and measure. I read online somewhere that your depth is approximately double your measurement. So if you wanted to achieve the 2.5" deep interior as I had in the other bag, you'd measure 1.25" down from the point. Mark your line and sew. 

After you sew both corners {I like to go over them twice with the machine}, clip the edges off.

Turn it inside out and look a squared corner without all the panel piecing! 

You will do the exact same steps for your inner lining.

And basically you will assemble it all the same way as previously mentioned. As you can see this was a much quicker method. However, I found taking the time to do both was beneficial for future projects like that square outdoor floor cushion I told myself I would make{at some point}. The latter method is super fun and easy for making tote bags galore!

I hope you enjoyed and were inspired you to try a project of your own! If you have any questions about anything I did, please do not hesitate. I did not invent these sewing methods and am super thankful to all those who put together various tutorials that enabled me to learn different techniques and apply them to my creations.