Measuring Strap Fabric for Handmade Purses

Video Transcript

Hi. I?m Melina Piroso and welcome to Expert Village. Today I?m going to show you how to make this cute little bag out of regular, everyday fabrics. So, for this next step, we are going to measure the strap of our bag. You can make this any type of strap you want. If you like the kind of bag that kind of just hangs right under your shoulder, than you're going to take a measuring tape like this, and you're going to kind of hang it over your shoulder and you're going to see wherever you want the bag to hang. Me personally, I like the across-the-chest type of bag so I?m going to measure it this way and you're going to plan out where you want your bag to hang. So, that's fifty six inches. Again, you want to make sure that you allow an inch for sewing. I don't really want the bag to start right here, I would rather it start right here which would be fifty four inches, but because I?m adding an inch on each side for seam allowance, we're going to say fifty six inches. If you happen to have fabric that's beautiful and sturdy and it's applicable for this strap and it's one inch, you can cut out a one-inch-wide fifty-six-inches-long strap, or however long you want it. Since I don't have that fabric, I?m going to have to construct a fifty six inch strap from this fabric. So, the first thing I?m going to do is I?m going to cut out all the workable fabric and I've got a pocket on this backside but on the front, I have this nice long area. So, before I cut the back side, I?m going to go ahead and cut the front side. So, these jeans are left over from a time where I cut off the bottoms to make bell bottoms and I saved this top part of the jean because I knew I would use it eventually at another time and here I am using it. So, it's always important to hold on to every little scrap, every little thing that you think you may not use; eventually, it'll come in handy. So, since I?m making my strap fifty six inches and again, that's me personally, you can make yours shorter, you can make yours longer, you can make yours any length that you desire. I?m going to measure this and see how much we have. And it looks like I can get, probably about four pieces because I?m going to make them each a little bit more than an inch thick and measuring across this way, we almost have eight inches. So, I have plenty of fabric enough to make four pieces. They are eighteen inches long so I?m definitely going to have enough to make it fifty six inches long.

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