Pants Bag casing tutorial ...

I've been making Pants Bags for my special blogging friends and recently made this one for the lovely Amy @ A Quilting Sheep - she wrote a super post about it :)

Amy really liked my casing and wondered how I did it. I was about to reply, 'see my tutorial' when I realised that because the bag in the tutorial was a mini Christmas bag, I had only attached single casing.

So here is a 'double folded casing mini tutorial' especially for Amy but also for anyone else who may like to use it (please note, my technique has evolved over 4 years of making my Pants Bags so I'm not meaning to take credit for this from anyone or am I saying this is the only way to make casing ... just that this is the way I now make it.)

1) Firstly, choose your fabrics - new FQs or scraps (or even use up your orphan blocks). This bag is going to be for my friend Jennie (aqua and yellow are her colours, I read on her blog this week): 

2) Make your outer and lining bags (leaving a 5" gap in the bottom of your lining bag for pulling the outer bag through later) to the size of your choice - I like mine around 14" x 14" - and I make both bags exactly the same size:

3) Cut 2 strips of casing fabric - 5" by the width of your sewn bag - in my case here, it's 5" x 14". The width is chosen depending on what size cord / ribbon you'll be pulling through, so I do vary this. Fold over at the ends and press then fold in half and press again:

4) Pin to both sides of the outer bag like so and stitch just under a 1/4" all around:

5) Turn the bag inside out. Drop in the lining bag and pin and again stich just under a 1/4" all around:

6) Pull the outer bag through the lining gap, press the lining and stitch up the gap with matching thread:

7) I have two ways of finishing to catch those ends where the outer bag and lining bag don't meet: I either top stitch around the whole bag or, using invisible thread, I hand sew the ends together. For this bag, I'm going to top stitch - so I pin:

8) And sew:

9) I've chosen yellow ribbon for the cord:

And voila:

Hope that helps, Amy :)

And here she is with my other finishes this week:

(Linking up with Amanda Jean and Sarah)