DIY "HAND" BAG | Make Thrift Buy #44

Hello!

Welcome to a brand new episode of Make, Thrift,
Buy, the show where you guys send in cool

things you found on the internet and then
I do my best to recreate them!

So first off – show of hands if you love
puns.

GUYS.

Today’s challenge, sent to me by Norie,
is probably one of my favourite Make Thrift

Buy suggestions so far.

It’s a HAND.

BAG.

A hand.

Bag.

Get it?

The whole item is a pun.

It’s so beautiful.

The original design comes from a Japanese
brand called MerryJenny from a year-old collection

– so unless you live in Japan, and time-travel
back a year ago, or you buy a cheap wholesale

knockoff of this bag – which, actually no,
not even that’s available anymore – well,

this item is pretty much impossible to get
your hands on.

Luckily, I’m pretty handy when it comes
to DIY, so I'm pretty sure we can make this

for ourselves.

Fingers crossed we nail it!

This, and more puns, await you in this tutorial.

So let’s get started.

So before we start I just want to say, I did
pretty much everything about this project

pretty much backwards, and for that reason

it took me two frickken DAYS to complete,

but if you do this project in a much more
logical way than I did then it will probably

take you about 3-4 hours.

Just do as I say, not as I do.

Anyway with that said, the first thing I did
was to collect up my fabrics.

Both fabrics are woven (which means, non-stretchy)
cottons which are mid-to-heavy weight – like

linen consistency.

The black cotton will make up the bag portion
of the tote, and this purpley-pink fabric

will make up the straps and the hands of the
bag.

The first thing that I did was to cut 3 rectangles
out of my fabrics.

The two straps are both 42 inches long and
6 inches wide.

I wanted these to be LONGER than the length
of the straps on the original bag, because

I like my tote bags to have longer straps.

The bag fabric is 36 inches long and 16 inches
wide.

So first, I’m going to make a simple tote
bag.

To do this, I folded the bag fabric in half
length-ways, put pins through both layers

to hold them together, and then I sewed down
the sides like this.

Next, with the bag still inside-out, I’m
going to “box” the two bottom corners.

To do this, first I cut away some of the excess
fabric at the seam, about 2 inches worth,

and then I pulled the corner out like this,
and then I folded this bottom corner so that

the side seam ends up right in the middle
of the corner.

Then, I drew a straight line 2 inches up from
the corner point to make a triangle.

Then, I sewed straight across here.

After this corner was sewn, I chopped off
the corner close to the stitches, repeated

this on the other side, and I ended up with
this.

The bottom of the bag will now look really
nice when it’s turned the right way around.

While the bag was still inside out, I folded
the top down about 1 and a half inches, and

then I sewed all the way around the top, to
make a hem.

To make the straps, I laid each one on my
ironing-board, and first I folded them like

this, bringing the edges in to meet at the
centre.

I ironed these folds in place, all the way
down the length of the strap.

Then, I folded THIS in half, and then I ironed
the whole strap flat.

And then I repeated this for the other strap.

Now unfortunately, I didn’t have a thread
that matched the colour of my fabric, so I

chose this pale grey as a nice, subtle contrast.

Then, I folded down the end of each strap
like this, and I sewed a box shape down the

end, and then I sewed down both sides of each
strap like this.

And this is what each finished strap looks
like.

Next, I placed the straps approximately where
I wanted them to go on the bag, but I didn’t

sew them on yet.

And this is the point where I started doing
EVERYTHING backwards – because I decided

that I would try and sew the hands directly
onto the bag itself, which I later realised

was not the best thing to do.

Anyway, to get the right size for each of
the hands, I lined up this fabric underneath

the strap, and I drew a hand shape on to it
with chalk.

Then I folded this fabric over on itself once,
and then twice, so that there were a total

of 4 layers of fabric underneath.

I stuck some pins into the hand shape to stop
the fabric from moving, and then I cut out

all 4 hands at once.

SO, this is the bit you hands-down SHOULD
NOT follow.

I sewed the hands down directly onto my tote
bag in the positions that I wanted them, BUT

you should just sew them directly onto iron-on
patches – they’re these guys – instead.

All the sewing still happens in the same way
as I do here, so I’ll show you how I sewed

up the hands, but I highly recommend, from
my own firsthand experience, that you either

sew these onto scrap fabric or iron on patches,
and NOT directly on to the tote bag.

So, I attached each hand to the fabric underneath
by first throwing it into an embroidery hoop

– and this is totally optional, I just wanted
to keep the fabric underneath taut – and

then using a very short zig-zag stitch - here
is me reducing the length of my zig-zag stitch

to basically nothing - I went around the edges
of each hand like this.

So that gave me this.

Then, I stitched on the fingernails on in
a similar way, using a wide zig zag stitch

in contrasting colours – I used purple and
red for the nailpolish -

And this is where we really ran into trouble,
because the repeated zig-zag stitching caused

the fabric to pinch and bunch up around the
edges of the hand applique, which I didn't

think looked particularly good.

So I decided to scrap this bag, but I saved
the hands on it and turned them into PATCHES

– and I basically made this patches exactly
in the same way as I did

in my alien t-shirt DIY.

So first, I grabbed my fabric glue and I painted
a thin line of glue around the edges, close

to the stitches.

This will stop the fabric from fraying when
I cut them out.

And then, I cut the hands out of the fabric,
really close to those zig-zag stitches.

I then placed each hand down on top of an
iron-on patch – It was a LITTLE bit too

small for the patch, but I made it work – and
I sewed them on to the patches right around

the edges.

Then I cut all of this out, around the hand’s
outline – and I’ve got myself a hand patch.

I repeated this for all the others to give
myself 4 hand patches.

You gotta hand it to me - I improvised pretty
well there.

So then, I started the tote again from scratch
– BUT FIRST, I’m going to apply the hands

up both ends like this, each matching pair
about 2 and a half inches away from the top

edge of the fabric, by ironing them on.

And once they were ironed on, I made the bag
exactly in the same way as I did the first

time around – folded it in half, sewed down
the sides, boxed the corners, sewed a hem

around the top, and I’ve now got a bag with
hands on it, and all I have to do is to sew

on the straps.

I attached each strap to one pair of matching
hands, like this, sewing them on using two

lines of straight stitches here and here.

After repeating this on the other side I now
have a hand bag.

So, how does it look?

How did I go?

(Music plays)

I LOVE how this turned out.

This is my new favourite shopping bag, my
new favourite pool bag – I love it.

I’m probably going to add a small pocket
on the inside as well, might even do a lined

version – but because this was the first
ever tote bag I'd ever made, I wanted to start

with the basics.

We can get fancy later on.

Anyway, my conclusion is:
(scissor-snipping sound effect)

THUMBS UP if you liked this tutorial!

This bag is pretty cute(ical), don't you think!

Hey no wait!

Camera, no wait!

No, I'm sorry, I'll stop making hand puns!

Camera, wait!

No!

Come on, lend me a hand!

(scary music plays)

Wait no, I mean I didn't -
I didn't mean to make another hand pun -

I'm sorry!

Um, oh man.

This has gotten TOTALLY out of hand!

No, wait, no!

[THUD]
(Silence)

In all seriousness, if you liked this video,
and you like the content that I produce, consider

helping to support this community by going
to patreon.com/annikavictoria.

Any amount, even $1 per video - even $1 per
month! - helps out a TONNE.

This studio space that I'm filming in right
now?

Wouldn’t be possible without my Patreon
fam.

In fact, nothing would even be filming right
now, because the lens of my camera was supported

by my Patreon patrons when my old one broke.

So a BIG shout out to my Patreon family for
helping to make this video possible.

So, I'll see you on my Patreon page - you
can click here OR visit the link in

the description.

Bye guys!