I chose Nightmare Before Christmas fabric for my Baker Street Bag.  This is another free pattern offered by Sara Lawson at Sew Sweetness.  She has a few free patterns on her site for you to try out so you know what they are like before purchasing one.  I will be selling this finished bag on my ETSY site.

My pieces cut out, labelled and assembled.  I am now ready to get to the machine.

Here I am adding a few pockets to the inside lining of the bag.  There will be 2 pockets on each side, for a total of four.

One of the most time consuming parts of this bag is making the zipper.  I have to keep switching back and forth between different thread colors and zipper feet.  When I am attaching a zipper, I like to use similar thread color.  In this case, I used a nice bright orange which you can’t really see because it blends so nicely.  Then I switched back to black, to top-stitch all along the outside of the fabric.  Then I cut down the zipper to fit nicely in the bag.  I usually cut them short like this, so you can just tuck them inside the bag.  Some people like to leave them hanging out on the side. [I used a heavy duty metal zipper for this bag.]

The zipper panel is not attached to both sides of the lining.

I have added the straps to both sides of the exterior.  I made them nice and long so the purse will hang beautifully.

I have trimmed up and added the exterior side panel.  I make sure this exterior is nice and sturdy by basting on a thick foam to the fabric.

I repeat the same process with bag’s interior lining.

Now it is time to sew the exterior and interior together.  I make sure to leave about a 5-8 inch slot at the bottom for turning the bag.

Here the bag is all turned.  At this point, I just need to sew up the slot at the bottom and press the rest of the bag.

The finished exterior of the bag.

The finished interior of the bag.  [It is hard to see the pockets in this photo due to the zipper panel.]

Additional bag photos…