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Unlined Box Pouch... or Bag
Contents
The boot of my car may have a tendency to get filled with stuff. All of which I'm sure will be useful in case of an emergency or something (as well as something that gets actually used).
Stuff, of course, will get everywhere in the car, which means that cleaning it becomes quite a chore, and gets procastinated until absolutely necessary… and at cleaning time stuff is brought home where it lies in an old, ruined hardware store bag, looking at me with an accusing stare.
My nice and tidy car boot. At least for a few days…
I'm not good at avoiding an excuse to sew a quick project, so I grabbed my cheap silnylon stock, a leftover length of zipper and started to make plans.
I wanted something that was basically a scaled up box pouch, so I searxed for tutorials and found that most of them used a lining to have a neat interior. This works great with a cotton pouch, but a silnylon bag doesn't really require one (and dealing with two layers of the Slippery Elemental isn't fun), so I decided to neaten the edges with french seams.
Tutorial
Materials
You'll need the following materials
A non-separating zipper; mine was 65 cm long.
One or two rectanges of your fabric; if it's big enough you can just use one, but if you're making a small pouch it's much easier to use two pieces, attach the zipper and then sew the bottom closed.
One side should be as long as the zipper, the other side will become the circumference of your bag.
Mine was about 65 x 90 cm.
Two scraps of fabric for the zipper pulls; mine were 10 x 10 cm.
Sewing thread.
Instructions
Here I cut my fabric wider than the zipper; it will get trimmed to size later.
Fold down one short edge of the fabric by 1 cm twice, as if to make a simple hem, sew it to one side of the closed zipper.
First sew near the edge of the zipper to keep everything in place, then sew a second seam closer to the zipper teeth.
Do the same to the other short edge.
If you used two rectangles for the body, now sew the bottom with a french seam: with wrong sides together sew 5 mm from the edge, turn inside out and, with right sides together, sew 10 mm from the first seam. Turn again inside out, so that the right sides are outside.
Align the zipper with the center of the rectangle (or with the bottom seam, if you have one), with wrong sides facing, and sew 5 mm from the edges (or, if your rectangle isn't precise, 5 mm from the end of the zipper, and then trim the allowance to 5 mm).
If the fabric allows it, press open the seam (otherwise at least finger-press it).
Prepare the zipper pulls: fold the two small rectangles in half, sew a long edge, (finger) press open and turn inside out, (finger) press flat.
If you can, leaving the seam at the center will give a neater result, but leaving it on one side is easier when working with slippery materials.
On the right side, place the pulls on the ends of the zipper and sew in place above the seam.
At this stage you could also add a handle, hanging loops or the like, but see at the end for a lack-of-planning alternative.
Open the zipper, turn the bag inside out, and finish the french seams on the sides by sewing 10 mm from the edge seam.
You can stop here and have a flat bag like a garment bag, or continue to give it a parallelepipedal shape.
Fold down one corner, aligning the seam with the edge of the flat bag and sew perpendicularly to it, at a distance that is half the desired height of the bag.
Repeat on all four corners.
Turn the bag inside out.
After the bag was finished, I decided to add a handle: this was simply a strip of webbing sewed on top of one of the side seams.
And enjoy your finished bag.
