The wedding bag

Yesterday we attended my cousin's wedding and my daughter got to walk down the aisle ahead of the bride and to deliver the wedding rings. As such, her dress was chosen by the bride and even if the color/pattern was not my favorite, we had to follow her wishes.

However, on Saturday I decided I needed to add my personal touch to the whole set and made a mini wedding bag by for my daughter to take to church (in mom takes a bag, she's entitle to take one too, right?).

I totally winged it, so absolutely no pattern, and until the end I was not sure it was going to work. But since she was happy and all the other little girls at the party wanted to take turns carrying the bag, I think it ended up a successful idea.

I did take some pictures of the process, though. I started by cutting two circles of white fabric using a round dinner plate as measure. The fabric is not exactly the same shade as the dress, but I had to make do with what was available.

I ironed the fabric and sewed the two circles, right sides together, turned inside out and top stitched all arround.

Then I added a second row of stitches a little less than a centimeter from the first one:

Using a seam ripper I opened two pairs of slits in opposite sides of the circle, as shown below (the red lines), taking care to to cut the stitches.

 

Since my fabric did not fray and I just needed the bag to last one day anyway, I did not bother with the slits, but with a fraying fabric I probably would have had to secure the openings better. 

Using a safety pin I inserted a thin white ribbon through the casing (same as if inserting an elastic), pulling it out through one slit and inserting it back through the other in order to form the bag handles.

Then I pulled each of the handles to bundle the fabric in between, giving shape to the bag. The two ends of the ribbon were tied with a knot and then hidden under a set of white and grey flower buttons (to match the white and grey of the dress).

And here it is, the whole outfit:

In the bag I placed a pack of tissues and my daughter added a tube of lipstick (yes, she's four. Don't ask).

It's a small bag, not much more fits in there anyway, but she was happy and so was I, especially because I managed to whip it up in less than an hour and still have time (and daylight left) to finish getting everything else ready for the wedding day.

Enjoy,