Steps to Finish the Petal Bag

After sewing the petals together, they must be attached to a lining square.  Pin the 2 raw edges of the petal to 2 sides of the lining square.  Sew 1/8" from the edge.

Next, I have to sew them together into rows.  I learned during my first petal bag to pin up the petals as they will catch in the seams.

I pinned the petals up again when connecting the rows.

Here are the rows sewed together.  This ends the most time consuming and difficult aspect of making this bag.  

Here you can see the bag sewed together into a tube.  

Bottom of bag is gathered using 2 rows of basting stitches.


It took me a few days to finish the second half of this bag but only because I had to play with various measurements: casing strips, bag lining, and handle.  It should go faster now that I have all the measurements down.

I decided to made the handle.  I made a long tube of fabric (right sides together) and turned it inside out with a safety pin.  For some reason this took me a long time to figure out and a lot of good fabric thrown into the scrap pile.  This technique should have been obvious but I guess I was really tired because I was doing it the hard way. 

I was trying to make binding instead of a tube. You know, 2 raw edges turned in to the center, fold it, and sew it together to make a long 'string'.  It looked horrible and was very time consuming.  At least I didn't waste too much time as I didn't finish it, just too much fabric. 

TA DA!!!!!  The final bag.  It looks great and ended up bigger than I thought it would be.  Definitely purse size and not handbag size.