Sewing success! A bigger bumbag

By lizhaywood | June 19, 2023 |

The larger size bumbag I started sewing last week is now finished (and my children’s predictable bum jokes continue…).

I’m so thrilled with how this bag turned out!

I took the zero waste waist bag pattern I made 2 years ago and simply got it printed it out at double the size, to make a cross body bag.

Liz Haywood wearing a zw spotty denim cross body bag.
Zero waste bumbag in gold denim with brown zips.
This is the original bag – a classic bumbag that’s zero waste.
Two different sizes of bumbag shown together.
Here are the bags side by side.

I found longer zips to use, and took the same seam allowances as the original pattern.

For a strap, I had a strip remaining of the same fabric, so I cut two pieces each 50cm long x 16cm wide (finished width 7cm), sewed them each into a tube, and attached one each side. Not sure what to do about a buckle or whatever, so for the moment it’s held together with large safety pins. I might just sew it. Or I might leave the pins to rust irrevocably in the fabric.

Strap on the cross body bag, showing a safety pin holding the ends together.

The bumbag includes a small coin purse (only if you’re cutting a single bag – a quirk of zero waste), so I made that too.

The coin purse from the cross body bag, in spotty denim.

It’s designed to clip into a loop inside the bumbag.

The new cross body bag looks effortlessly cool on my teen, in a way it would never look on me!

Zero waste cross body bag worn with grey t-shirt and red jacket.

Cheers!

Posted in Sewing and tagged , , , , , , ,

6 Comments

  1. Victoria Barnett on June 19, 2023 at 8:04 pm

    This looks fabulous! That’s what I love about your patterns- they look good on normal people, and they are functional for normal people. (I also think it’s funny that they are called bum bags over there and Fanny packs here- teens giggle every where)

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on June 19, 2023 at 10:12 pm

      Thanks Victoria!

      Reply
  2. Lesley on June 20, 2023 at 2:12 am

    Fantastic, what a useful size and so much neater than a backpack. Such a simple idea to just enlarge the pattern, such genius. I’m always getting thwacked by people wearing backpacks, so refuse to use one, but I may have a go at one of these.

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on June 20, 2023 at 9:53 am

      Thanks Lesley – it holds quite a lot, more than I thought.

      Reply
  3. Christine Nielsen on June 29, 2023 at 8:50 pm

    Leave the pin to rust irrevocably into the fabric! When making skirts and pants with elastic I often wear them a few times with the elastic safety pinned in place, to check the fit. Last month I discovered that I have been wearing and washing a pair of pants with a pin for three years.

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on June 29, 2023 at 9:47 pm

      “…and the universe keeps turning”!
      I have heard of people moving house and discovering the curtains have pins irrevocably rusted into the hems 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Comment