Denim flap bag: sewing and patchwork tutorial

Many patchwork enthusiasts keep their old, worn out jeans in hopes of reusing them someday in a creative project. I have a big family, so it’s no wonder I’ve gathered quite a lot of old jeans over the years. They may not be good to wear any more, but denim is a great durable material and I just couldn’t throw it away. Finally, it dawned on me that I could use it to sew some bags and backpacks. Why not? Denim accessories never go out of fashion!

So in this tutorial I’ll show you how to sew a nice flap bag out of recycled jeans.

The flap is going to be decorated with denim patchwork. So here’s what you’ll need:

1. Two pairs of old jeans – one light-colored and one dark-colored
2. A pair of scissors
3. A sewing needle and thread
4. A zip fastener
5. Lining fabric
6. Paper (including some tracing paper)
7. Interfacing (Medium or Firm iron-on or Soft & StableFusible Interfacing)
8. A ruler

Making patchwork for the flap

We’ll start with the flap. Here’s the pattern.

Now take some tracing paper, put it over the pattern and copy that scheme onto it. This is the scheme of our patchwork, and the hatching indicates where the dark denim will go.

Now measure the smallest inner squares, add extra for the seams and then cut out two stripes of fabric.

Sew them together so they form a chess pattern.

Now pin it to the scheme. Keep the seams aligned with the lines, and be careful not to mess up the colours.

From there you simply go outwards. Just measure the triangles around the square (don’t forget to add extra for the seams!) and cut them out.

Pin it, sew it on, flip it over, iron it and move on to the next triangle.

Every piece needs to be ironed. Make sure it sits nicely and is aligned well with the rest of the pattern.

And here’s what you should get.

Take the paper away.

Attach the patchwork to interfacing and make a decorative seam (this is the time to make sure it matches the initial flap pattern closely). You can also attach facing along the edge, but this is optional. Then cut a piece of denim for the back of the flap and sew them together.

Iron it well, and the flap is ready!

Making the bag

Let’s make the strap first. The strap will be made of two pieces, 120 and 11cm long. The width of my strap is 2cm, but yours may be different.

The two parts of the strap are now sewed into two pieces of denim (6x6cm squares folded in half).

Now to making the bag itself. You will need four denim and four lining pieces cut out from this pattern.

Take two denim pieces, put them together so that they are facing each other, copy the inner seam line from the pattern and sew.

Now take the back piece (I’ve used one with a pocket) draw a line 3cm away from the top and sew the flap to it.

Make a decorative seam 0.5cm away from the edge.

Pin the strap ends to the piece 3cm away from the top.

Sew the back to the top piece of the inner part of the bag. Pin the overhang on the bottom piece so it doesn’t get in the way as you do that.

That’s half the bag.

Now turn it over, pin up the edge of the back that you just attached, and sew the front piece.

Turn the bag inside out and make some little cuts in the corners.

The bag is pretty much done.

Fixing the lining and final touches

Take the two pairs of lining that you’ve cut and sew each pair along the edge. You should get two bags. Make a 1cm fold at the top of each bag and baste it.

Now take your zipper, put it across your bag, add extra 5-6cm of length and cut it.

Put pencil marks at the top of the bag, 1.5cm away from the side seams.

Pin or baste your zipper.

Sew it between the pencil marks 0.7cm from the edge. Do the same for the other side. Then fold all the edges (including the ones you attached your zipper to) about 0.7-0.8cm inside and baste them.

Now take your lining bags and put them inside the bag compartments. Baste them and sew them to the denim.

Put the runner on your zipper and also sew on a denim tailpiece to act as a stopper.

Install some decorations on the strap, and the bag is done!

A couple notes on the rivets and other metal decorations. If you can’t (or don’t want to) install them, you can get by without them very well. Besides, you can make a different patchwork for the flap. Here’s an example of what you can do using the techniques and sewing patterns from this tutorial. And I think it looks very cool!

Have fun with this one!