We love to travel, and I’m always looking for the perfect little cross-body bag that will enable me to keep my passport, phone, pack of Kleenex, debit card, and cash close at hand while going through security, killing time before the flight is announced, and enduring the boarding process. And I want it to be small enough so that, after boarding, I can wrap the strap around it and tuck it into my handbag or carry-on bag.
I’m a big fan of Sara Lawson’s Sew Sweetness bag patterns. Her January, 2019, challenge to all her followers was to make a Metro Double-Zip Pouch and post a photo to her website. I made a few more than one—I made eight! Several people have asked about my pattern changes to add a third pocket, so here’s my tutorial to turn two pockets into two zippered pockets plus a slip pocket. Two plus one equals three.
The following tutorial is just my way. I’m sure there are many other ways to accomplish the objective; this is mine.
Because I planned for the middle slip pocket to be used as a phone pocket, I wanted some padding around it for protection. I also wanted a magnetic snap to securely hold the contents of that little pocket in place, especially if all it was holding was my passport.
If you haven’t already purchased Sara’s Minikins Season 2 set of patterns, follow this link to buy the patterns, which will be available in your Sew Sweetness account immediately following purchase. Along with the patterns, your purchase also gives you one of Sara’s excellent tutorial videos for each of the bags in the collection. You might want to go ahead and see along with the video to make one of the bags as detailed in the pattern and video. This will familiarize you with the bag and the pattern before attempting the changes I’ll detail in this post.
Both the Season 1 and Season 2 Minikins patterns are a great way to ramp up your bag-making skills or introduce you to bag-making. They are easy, quick makes with a minimum amount of hardware to purchase. But best of all, if you’ve been making quilts or bags for a while, you’ve probably got lots of small scraps of fabric hanging around your sewing space. These bags are perfect for using up those pieces of fabric. Those of us who are guilty of this hoarding practice refer to this as stash busting. The finished products make great gifts for your friends or you kids’ or grandkids’ teachers or for selling at craft fairs. They are all very useful little bags.
My instructions below are in addition to Sara’s pattern instructions for the Metro Double-Zip Pouch. They won’t make sense to you at all unless you’ve purchased Minikins Season 2.
Let’s get started:
In the Supplies section on page 1, purchase two D-rings rather than one, and buy one 14mm/½” magnetic snap in the metal color to match the rest of your hardware. You may have to purchase a pack of two or four. Be careful to get the 14mm rather than the 18mm/¾”. The ¾” is too heavy and hard to open for this little bag. Also purchase a half-yard of Pellon 987F Fusible Fleece (available at Jo-Ann’s—watch for coupons or sales) or similar product.
Pattern Changes
You can make this bag in small, medium, or large, but for us as a cross-body bag, I recommend large.
Additionally, I would like the slip pocket to have a little extra height for my iPhone 7+. Before you cute out your bag, measure the phone you or the bag recipient expect to use with the bag.
My iPhone 7+ dimensions are:
mm – 158.2 x 77.9
inches – 6.23 x 3.07
Without any changes to the pattern, and without the magnetic snap, my phone fits nicely in the slip pocket with about ½” to spare. However, with the snap (and having accidentally used a ¾” snap rather than a ½”), I cannot close the snap. Further, there is about a ⅝” space between the zipper on the pocket of the bag and the zipper on the main panel. If I were to make the bag again for this phone, I would add ½” to the bottom of the pocket pieces when cutting them out.
Cut a piece of fusible fleece one inch shorter and one inch less wide that the Pocket piece. Fuse it to the back pocket piece, centered on that piece.
The extra hardware needed to convert this bag to a three-pocket crossbody bag is a ½” magnetic snap, two or three extra ½” swivel hooks, and an extra ½” D-ring.
The extra fabric pieces you need to cut are as follows:
- For the Pocket piece, cut two of the exterior and lining.
- If you want this to be a crossbody bag, cut two of the Tab piece from the exterior fabric.
(Click on photo to enlarge.) I like to make both a wristlet strap and a crossbody strap when I’m making this bag with the middle slip pocket. It just takes a few minutes more and three swivel clasps instead of one. Then, if later on, I want to use the bag as a wristlet, I’m prepared for that. You could make a coordinating tassel out of some ribbon or coordinating fabric if you didn’t like the second crossbody D-ring just sticking out there naked when you were using the bag as a wristlet. If you have not made an adjustable strap before, there are two videos I’m suggesting that will teach you how. The first is from Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness Patterns. An alternative would be the same topic from Vanessa Vargas Wilson of Crafty Gemini. Cut from your exterior fabric a strip 2″ wide by the length you learned in your preferred video and a piece of Shape-Flex interfacing the same dimensions.
Now, the steps in the pattern instructions where you will make changes:
- #6-7. Take your second Pocket exterior piece which has the piece of fleece centered and fused on. After you sew the lining pocket to the zipper, sew this fleece/exterior pocket piece to the back side of the zipper, right sides together with the back lining piece, zipper sandwiched between the two pieces. Topstitch the back, as you did to the front of the pocket in Step 5, Paragraph 2.
- Now you want to add the magnetic snap. Lay the completed pocket on your workspace with the back side face down. Lift up the front side and the lining of the back side. Measure the width and determine the center point. I put the “male” or “outie” side of the magnetic snap on the Pocket and the “female” or “innie” side on the front of the Main Panel. Holding the male side face down on the inside back of the Pocket, figure out the highest point at the center where you can attach it without interfering with the topstitching – maybe an ⅛” down from the topstitching. (I don’t have a scientific way to do this, sorry. Just follow your gut.) Using an erasable or water-soluble marker, draw around the snap. Now take the back washer, hold that in place, and mark the two vertical slots where the prongs of the snap will slip through. Once that’s done, use your sharpest little scissors to carefully cut through the fleece and the fabric at those two vertical slots. Make sure you cut all the way through to the fabric of the pocket back. Slide the two prongs of the male side of the snap through those two openings. Holding the snap tighly in place against the back fabric, flip the pocket over to the wrong side again and slide the washer onto the prongs. Using a flat head screwdriver, fold the prongs out to hold the snap in place. At this point, I always cut a 1″ square of fleece interfacing and fuse it over that washer to protect the fabric the exposed prongs would rub against. Now place the back of the Pocket against the front Main Panel, aligning the bottoms and sides. Clip the Pocket and Front Main Panel together so they won’t slip out of place. Carefully draw a circle around the male side of the snap that you can feel from the interfaced back of the Front Main Panel. Now hold the washer in place on the back of the Front Main Panel and draw your vertical lines. Remove the washer and carefully slit the lines open. Turn to the outside of the Front Main Panel and slip the prongs through the openings. Turn back to the inside, slip the washer in place, and spread the prongs to secure the snap. Fuse a 1″ piece of fleece to the inside.
- Now continue at Step 8, basting the Pocket in place on the Front Main Panel.
- Construct the crossbody strap as you would with the Wrist Strap in Step 9-11. Follow the steps you learned in the Crossbody Strap video, using the slide and two swivel clips to make the adjustable strap. Set the strap aside.
- Using Step 12, place a Tab and D-ring on both the left and right sides of the Front Main Panel above the Pocket.
Continue through Step 16 to finish your bag. Attach the swivel clips of the adjustable crossbody strap to the left and right D-ring/Tab assembly.
