How to Sew Bag Handles with Ease
Stacy GrissomDescription
Learning how to sew bag handles is an important part of any bag or purse project. The handles need to be tough enough to support the bag, but you still want them easy to sew. Stacy Grissom shows you how to sew bag handles that are both sturdy and easy!
How to Start
First she begins with how you will need to modify the handle strap dimensions for this method, and then it’s on to pressing. By folding and pressing the fabric the way Stacy shows, the extra layers of fabric help provide support to the handles, and could eliminate the need for interfacing on some bag or purse projects.
Secure the Edges
As with the fabric used in this video, and other fabrics that take well to pressing, once the folds are ironed in place they stay. If you are using a different type of fabric, or find that your folds are coming undone, you may want to consider secure the layers of the folds together. This can be done with either a simple line of edge-stitching, or if you didn’t want to see any stitching you could apply some fusible hem tape or other adhesive between the layers to secure them.
This Looks Familiar
If you are thinking that you’ve seen this method used somewhere else-you might be right! This method of folding, using fabric cut on the bias, is how you create a form of bias tape. But as Stacy shows, different methods can be used for many different applications, and in this case she shows how to sew bag handles with ease!
♪♪ One of my favorite things to make is bags. You can never have too many bags, right? Straps and handles though in patterns tend to be more complicated than I feel necessary. A lot of the time they'll want you to fold it in half sew around three edges and then turn it inside or right-side out. Turning something that long right side out can be a really big pain. So I like to simplify my handles a bit. If your handles need to end up being one inch, you're going to multiply that times four. And you're going to cut your handle piece a little bit wider. So you may be using a little bit more fabric but I feel like it saves you time. So this is four inches wide, and it's going to end up being one inch thick. So if your handles were three inches, you'd cut 12 inches. If your ends don't need to be finished, then you can just leave them. If they do need to be finished then you can start out by folding Half an inch or so. And, so read your pattern make sure you know if your ends need to be finished or not so that you can include that in your measurement when you're figuring out how to resize the handle. So once you've got that folded in you can flip off the corners. And now You're going to fold wrong sides together, lining up raw edges. Hold the iron all the way down. Then you will open it back up. You're going to fold each raw edge in almost to that middle crease. Not quite touching it. Same thing on the other side. Almost into that middle crease. I'm going get one more fold in half. Press it one more time. Just so it stays together. Now you got to handle with no raw edges and you didn't have to fight with turning it right side out.
Love this. Quite a time saver.
Would like to see how this is finished/sewn
Wouldn't this have been easier if the person just said to make it like double folded cloth tape with the ends tucked in?
That was great but will you sew it together on the open sode?