Here is the promised tutorial for the ort bag. It is written the way I actually made it but I have had some ideas since making the first one and would do some of it differently if I made another.
What you need
You need two pieces of fabric:
One 14.5″ x 3″
One 12.5″ x 5″
a length of ribbon (approx 20″)
Method
Take your ruler and a pin and score a line .5″ from the narrow edges of all the strips of material.
Then repeat .25″ from the edges.
Fold along the .25″ score mark and then fold again.
While holding down the folded edge, pin a strip of ribbon slightly wider than the strip along the top edge. Then machine the along that top edge. Once you have done this, machine the bottom of the ribbon to secure it. Do this top and bottom of both strips. Then trim the ribbon to the edge of the strips.
Fold over .25″ on the long edges of the strips and machine down.
Fold the thin strip lengthwise and finger press. The unfold and machine along the fold line. This will help the bag to fold like a supermarket brown paper bag once it is finished.
Then fold the thin strip in half the other way and finger press the fold so that when you open it out you have a cross at the centre. Then take the wider strip and first fold it lengthwise and finger press. Then open it out and fold it the other way and finger press. You should now have a cross of folds at the centre of both pieces of fabric.
Place the narrower strip over the wider strip at right angles. Take a pin and pierce the centre of the folded cross of both pieces. Then pin the strips in the form of a cross and machine stitch the borders of the cross.
Once you have stitched around the rectangle at the centre then stitch diagonally then across the narrow side and diagonally again and then across the the other short side.
Turn the bag right side out and pin around the sides of the bag.
Stitch around the edges a little less than .25″ from the edges. Do this on both ends of the bag.
I hope you enjoy making this bag. If you use the contact form to let me know you have made one I’ll be happy to send you my email address so you can send me a photo and I’ll put it up on the blog.