New Cork Project

Last November at Quilt Festival in Houston Sue bought 2 pieces of cork fabric, gray and black, to use in making a cross body bag.  She knew she had a pattern by Pink Sand Beach Designs that she previously used and hoped it could be adapted to work with the cork.  It's called the Barbados Bag.

After studying the pattern and parts of the bag, she came up with a plan she hoped would work. The problem with using cork fabric is that is thicker than cotton fabric which could pose a problem when sewing multiple layers.  The front and back pocket pieces both are intended to be folded in half, and since she wanted to make them from the cork, she knew that double cork would be too thick, so she made a fabric lining instead.  She chose to use cork for the main body of the bag as well, thinking that 2 layers of cork wouldn't be too thick. So, here we go.

This is the front pocket and accent fabric section above and behind the pocket.

Here the pockets are layered over the bag pieces (gray).  Wonder clips are great for holding the pieces together, since you can't pin the cork without leaving holes.

These are all the pieces ready to put together - outsides on the left, linings on the right.

Here the front and back are sewn together at the bottom.  The cut outs at the sides form the gussets for the base of the bag.  This is where it started to become apparent that the thickness of the layers might be a problem.  You might be able to see the topstitching along the seam; rather than decoration, the purpose was to hold the seam allowances open and flatter!  For the most part, sewing parts together was not a problem till it came to those gussets on the bottom corners.

Because of the bag body and pockets both being cork, that meant 4 layers of cork in the side seams, plus the lining layers.  There's also some décor bond stabilizer in there.  When it came to the gussets, there was also that seam at the bottom of the bag adding into the equation, and that's where the difficulty came in.  It was just too thick for the Baby Lock machine to sew through.  So Sue got out the old faithful Pfaff and was able to get across - carefully - all the layers.

The previous picture is the front of the bag, above is the back.  The final challenge was turning the bag right side out.  It was a bit stiff, but as you can see - success!

Here's the final result with the strap made and attached.  If she were to make another with cork fabric, Sue thinks she would stick to just one layer of cork rather than 2.  Since we are headed to Nashville next week for QuiltCon, Sue will get to test drive the bag and see if it performs as she anticipates. Of course, we'll have pictures to share of our Nashville adventure!