Another bag with bamboo handles. I saw some of these bags with circular handles at Chickpea Sewing Studio and decided I would try one. I used another Amy Butler Midwest Modern fabric that you can find here. I again lined it with canvas to give the thin cotton some heft.
I used basically the same design and methods that I used for the Bamboo Beach Purse in my earlier post, but I made the bag larger and had to make the slits on each side a bit longer so that you can actually open it. I think I made them about 6 1/2″ long. Unfortunately I found this out the hard way when I finished a bag and realized that I couldn’t open it properly! Function is key here. I again had to hand sew the handles to the bag, which is the most time consuming part of this project. I wonder why they don’t make these rings so that they open and you can insert them into a channel? Oh, and I even tried cutting through one with my handy hacksaw, but there’s a metal piece inside. Oops. Bring in the heavy artillery. Maybe Juliette has a better method that doesn’t require hand sewing?