I have made myriads (ok, slight exaggeration) of cosmetic bags in a rounded shape.

However, I had not made any of the long, rectangular kind.

Until now.

I had been wanting to try these, but I wanted to. I didn’t have any real reason for making them - but rather, just a matter of learning how.

So, I tried directions on how to make this one here - from Melanie Ham. I’m so thankful her husband/family have left her videos up for us to learn from since she passed away.

I printed out Melanie’s directions on her blog after I watched her video.

Now I want to try a couple different videos I’ve seen. All are similar. I mean, they have to be alike in many ways, because they end up forming a box in a rectangle shape.

But here are the first two I tried. I used some beautiful floral fabric I have had and not known what to do with.

I’m not totally happy with my first attempts. Maybe I should be, but I’m not thrilled. “Ok”, yes, but not ecstatic. I did not even attempt the smallest one as these two were hard enough for me to make. I want to learn to make the small pencil case size. There’s probably a secret that I don’t know.

The zipper area for me is the weak spot and possibly it is because I’m using a size 5 (larger) zipper rather than a size 3 which is commonly used in dressmaking. However, I love the look of the larger ones and these are the ones I can find locally for a very reasonable price in all kinds of colors - so I will keep trying to make somthing I like with the zippers I can find here - until I have success.

These were also a little taller and not as long as I had hoped. Maybe I made them wrong. I’ll probaby give them another go at some time in the future. There are so many tutorials for these I’m sure I can try several different ones and learn to make them!

The other thing I didn’t have was fusible fleece. I’m using only a very stiiff interfacing. I’m thinking of trying to quilt some cotton batting and create a piece of fabric that would simulate some fusible fleece for the outer body of the bag. We don’t have the fusible fleece - or at least I’ve not found a local source here in Poland. I suppose amazon.pl would deliver to me tfor a huge price, but it is reallly unreasonably expensive for this purpose.

I may attempt these again, or something similar - I found another You Tuber who just shows you how to do it without words and may try to go ahead and quilt some fabric first and go from there instead of using very stiff interfacing. I think this person is from China.

I think you all know that I’ve made a lot of cosmetic bags and I’ve gotten where I can make those half round ones very quickly - and my husband made me some templates from plexiglass, so I have the patterns for a lot of the sizes where I can just run my rotary cutter around the edge so it’s quick to cut out.

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Feel free to browse the site.