How to Sew a Makeup Bag

I'm going to show you how to make a really super easy makeup brush holder. And what I really like about this project is it is made out of laminated cotton. So it's really easily washable. Now you can certainly make this project using regular quilting cottons or even oil cloth. Now, if you are using quilting cottons, you might want to get some fusible vinyl and put that on the fabric before you start sewing it, just so that when your makeup brushes get all powdery, or get some blush on them, you won't leave a residue on your fabric but these laminated cottons are wildly available now in really cute prints, as you can see, like this one. So I highly suggest going that route, and you don't need a lot of fabric for this, so really have fun with it. And what you're going to do is start out with three rectangles of the laminated cotton. So we have our outer, our inner and our pocket rectangle. So to prepare everything, fold one of the rectangles in half and just finger press it, you don't want to touch this to your iron ever, for obvious reasons. And position it on here so that the lower edges are aligned. I'll move this out of the way so you can see it. Now, the other thing is you could certainly pin through this fabric along the seam lines, because the pins are going to show up since it has this coating on there or you can use just some paper clips. That's what I like to do. You can use binder clips or you really don't have to pin or anything and you can just hold it by hand. Another thing I want to mention when you're working with laminated cotton is obviously it has this sticky coating. So it is not the most fun thing to be running through your sewing machine. So a couple of things can help you. One of them is a walking foot which is this contraption here, and it's mostly used when making quilts, but the whole idea of a walking foot is that it feeds all of the different layers of fabric through the machine at the same rate. So the bottom is going to be fed through the same rate as the top and you won't have any shifting like you might if something gets stuck in the top or stuck on the bottom. So you can try that. Also, this is a Teflon-coated foot, and it's really cool for a number of applications. I was talking about oil cloth earlier. This is a must have if you like working with oil cloth. But it obviously has this nonstick surface. So it's just going to glide over this fabric like nobody's business. So I highly suggest investing in one of those if you do a lot of this type of sewing. But I am going to use just a standard machine presser foot. Because the way that I develop this project, you're either going to be sewing with the cotton sides facing each other, which you'll have no problem going over that. Or we're going to be sewing over some tape, which is our marking points for our pockets. So you really don't need to do anything special. I might say that when you get to the final step of top stitching, you might want to put some tape on the underside of your presser foot, just make sure to position it outside of the hole for the needle so that the needle can pass through with no problem. I've heard people putting masking tape on there and I've heard other people putting just clear scotch tape on there. So you might want to try out a couple of things and just find the method that works best for you. So the next step here is taping our pockets. And you can follow the method that I did, which is marking two and a quarter inches from this right side edge marking, taping another piece two inches from that mark. And I'll show you all this in a minute. Or you can position your makeup brushes on this piece. And just mark around them. So you can just use a pencil is what I find works best. And just mark in between each of your brushes. And then you know that they're going to fit inside. And that's particularly good if you're going to use this for like colored pencils or anything else you want to use this for. You don't have to obviously use it for makeup brushes. So once you figure out where you want your pockets placed, we're going to use some tape to mark them. And at your fabric store, you might find some really cool fabric marking tapes. And you could certainly use those. Like I said earlier, with the presser foot, you could use the same masking tape you use to protect your presser foot, you could use scotch tape. But I just find really, I did mention a pencil earlier, but I find the tape is so much better because you might have some problems getting your pencil off of the laminated cotton because erasing it, it does work, 'cause I actually did it on this finished sample, but the tape just comes off so easily and it gives you a guide for straight stitching, which is very cool. So once you have marked your pocket placement, and like I said, so this one is two and a quarter inches from this edge. This one is two inches from this edge, and I'm measuring from the right side of the tape here. And so then another one and a half inches. And then these are for the really small brushes that I have or a lip liner or something like that. So I've taped this all up and we're going to start sewing it. So I've moved my needle all the way to the right most position right here, so that I have the presser foot over as much of the tape as possible. And that's really just going to help guide it along this fabric. And you want to position it so that it is right up against the right side edge of the tape. So you can see, I put my needle down into the fabric, right along the fold before I ever started sewing. And then just give it a go. And I backstitch really securely at the beginning because you're going to have a lot of stress along the upper edge there of your pocket. And backstitch a little bit at the end. And then we're going to trim our threads. And I should mention here that the thread that I've used is actually a decorative rayon thread, which is generally not recommended for regular sewing, but I wanted to use something that had a little bit of sheen to it, just like the fabric does, and so that's why I went with a rayon thread. You can certainly just go with all purpose or whatever you like. So once you have done this, you're going to stitch along the right side edge of all of these tape pieces and then remove the tape. And this tape's been on there for a little while, so it's a little... And then you have no residue, nothing left from your marking line. So, fabulous. So, once you have that, you're going to position your third rectangle over the top of this. And we're going to stitch all the way around. Actually, before we do that, we need to position our little tie. I'm ahead of myself here. So as you can see, we have all of our pockets stitched right here. We need to trim all of our threads along the upper edge on the front and the back. Once you have that done, then we're going to take our tie and position it in place. And I've used twill tape here, but you can use a decorative ribbon, you can use anything you want. You can even omit this if you don't want to be able to roll it up in the end. So I just take my little tie, folded in half, and pin it so that the upper edge of the tie is aligned with the fold of the pocket. And the fold of the tie is aligned with this outer edge. And then I just straight stitch that in place. Of course removing the pin once I get it under the presser foot. And you can zigzag that for extra reinforcement if you want. I'm just trying to get it so that I don't need a pin inside of my layers there. Okay, so now is the time where we're placing our third rectangle over the top of this. And aligning all of the edges. And then you're going to sew all the way around and leave an opening at the top here for turning. And you want to make sure that opening is a good like three and a half to four inches long so that you can really get in there because you're gonna have the two sticky layers touching each other and it's a little crazy to get it all out. So once you have done that, you can see that this is all sewn. Here's my opening. And we want to have some really good corners on this because with the weight of the laminated cotton, it's hard to get the corners perfectly poked out. So to help that I'm going to clip them very close to the stitching, but not touching the stitching. And once you have all of that, I also like to trim the seams, about halfway. So I used a quarter inch seam with this, so I'm trimming down to an eighth. You don't have to finish any of these. And then at the opening, I leave my seam allowance at a quarter inch, so that it's easier to turn under. So, just clip into that. Okay, and actually I'm going to leave these not trimmed so you can see the difference when I turn it right side out. So just get in there. This fabric is used a lot for rain coats and it's not entirely waterproof, but it is very water resistant. So it's a good thing for raincoats and hats and things like that. Maybe not for a downpour, but. Okay, so once we get this out, we need something to help us with these corners. I like to use a chopstick, something with a really blunt tip on it that is not going to poke all the way through the corner. Some people will use a blunt pair of scissors. Some people will use a point turner. I find that even a point turner sometimes is a little bit too sharp. So just work your corner out like that. You could see, if we did not do this part, since we're not pressing, this is really crucial to get your nice corners. And then I run it along the seam as well. Again, since we're not pressing, that's going to really help. Get these corners out. Now, it is a little difficult to see, but this is the edge where I trimmed the seam away. This is the edge where I did not. It's a little bit bulkier. It's still works. So it's really up to you. But this is such a quick and easy project, you might as well take that step and do it. All right, so now we need to close our opening and we're going to do that at the same time as we top stitch. So I just folded that under and the extra seam allowance there really helps. And I'm going to use a paper clip just to hold that in place. And then you're going to top stitch. And then we're all most finished. So I'm just going to go back to our finished one here. And you can see our top stitching is all nicely done and you certainly don't need to top stitch, it just helps it lie a little flatter. And this is the point where you are going to be sewing directly on the laminated surface. So, but you are right up against the edge here. So you could move your needle all the way to the left and that way your presser foot is really just catching that edge right there, if your needle is all the way to the left. So you won't really have any stickage problems with that either. So we also need our little closure and you can do this any number of ways. You even don't even have to have a closure. It's up to you. I like to use sticky back Velcro when I'm working with laminated cotton, because sewing through all of that, along with the sticky surface of the laminated cotton is just problematic. So what I do is I first put the... What's this one called? I guess this would be the loop. This is the hook tape. So I position the hook tape in the center here and a little bit down below the pocket so that it's not causing more on these upper edge stitches. And then I'm just going to, I would put the brushes in to see how far above this fold they rest. Fold over my flap and then just eyeball it here. What I do is I put the loop side on the hook side, leaving the sticky exposed, and just press that really good on there. Then we have them perfectly in place. Now that's really not going to give you a long lasting hold that you're going to be happy with. And most of you are going to want to sow through this, but as you know, the sticky is going to gum up your needle and it just causes some issues. So what I do is I just use a little bit of fabric glue behind here, just to reinforce it. You can certainly use a glue gun as well, and then that's never coming off. So then you have your cute finished makeup bag that you can stick your brushes in, close it, nicely, roll it up, tie it in a bow, tie it in a knot. And you're ready for travel.