Welcome back to the Castell Day Bag Sew Along. It’s Day 3 and if you need to catch up, you can check the previous days below. 

Here’s the schedule:
Day 1: Getting started – cutting and fusing pieces
Day 2: Starting Exterior of bag 
Day 3: Finish Exterior of bag (that’s today!)
Day 4: Make the Lining
Day 5: Finish the bag!

Day 2 left us with completed front and back panels and now we are going to join them. Pin or clip along the bottom edges to join and sew together. 

Press that bottom seam open and position the assembled exterior wrong side touching the foam stabilizer.

Smooth fabric over foam, pin in place, especially along the long seams that attached the side pieces to center panels. Topstitch on the side piece side of those seams.  Staying in the seam allowance mark 1″ away from each of these seams, away from center. Run a basting stitch between the 1″ marks, making sure you move the handles out of the way. 

Using a ruler or another long straight edge, mark a diagonal line connecting one end of the previous basting stitch to the closest inside corner. Repeat for all 4 corners.

Make sure the shape that is now marked out looks like the one below and in the pattern and cut away the foam only, leaving inside shape of foam and all fabric intact. If you are adding purse feet, decide where you’d like them and mark where to make your small cuts for the prongs.To place mine, I drew lines connecting the inside corners so I could visualize the base of the bag, then measured in 1.5″ from those lines, and 2″ in from notches at sides. I used my seam ripper to make very small holes for the prongs and push the feet through from the right side of the fabric and anchored them with the washers. 

Now fold up the bag right sides together, matching the side edges. Clip or pin and sew together along just the side edges.

To box the corners, we bring the seam from the sides to meet the seam from the bottom. Lay the seams flat and clip together. Sew one line at the regular seam allowance (3/8″) and then another to help reinforce, 1/8″ outside (toward raw edges) the line we just stitched.

The zipper casing doesn’t go all the way around the exterior of the bag, so we need to mark the edges, and centers so we can place it correctly. To do this, make a mark 1 1/2″ in from the side seams, on both the front and back of the bag. 

Mark centers now too.

To mark the centers of all the zipper casings, you can line them all up and mark 12″ in. 

Lining up centers of 2 zipper casings, place right sides together with zipper right side up and zipper pull at right. If you’re using a 24″ zipper, center the zipper teeth with the zipper casings, and if you’re using a longer zipper, it’s ok to have the pull outside of the zipper casing. Sew together with 1/4″ seam allowance and a zipper foot. Pull zipper casings back and match up wrong sides together and press away from zipper, then topstitch. Repeat with other side of the zipper.

Close the end of the zipper casings by sewing over the short ends, be careful sewing over the zipper teeth. Now we need to place the casing on the outer bag. With the bag right side out, and the zipper open all the way, and place the zipper casing right side up laid over top of the bag. Slide the casing over the outer edge of the bag and clip in place, matching center marks on casing and bag.

This is what it should look like once it’s clipped all around between the markings we placed earlier.

Before sewing in place, I like to zip up just to make sure I have the zipper casing on right. Once you’re sure it’s correct, sew in place with a long basting stitch between markings only. 

If you’re really keen to get an idea of what the bag will look like when it’s done, you can place the frames in the casing now, but you’ll have to take them out before we attach the lining.

That’s it for now! We will continue with the lining on Friday so you can set the outer bag aside for now. I’d love to see how you’re doing. Share with me on Instagram with #CastellSewAlong or in the Emmaline Sewing Patterns Group on Facebook and don’t forget to tag me @reecemontgomery so I can see. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to seeing you all again for Day 4.