Renovating A Bag To Have A Zipper And Boxed Bottom

 A couple of weeks ago I attended a Stake Relief Society Leadership meeting.  It was so very good!  I learned many things from other Relief Society presidency members.  We had a very nice lunch from Olive Garden.

AND...we were given a wonderful bag!  I absolutely love bags.  All kinds of bags. Purses, zippered pouches, reusable handle bags, simple bags, complicated bags.

The bag we were given as a remembrance of the meeting was a simple handle bag with an image of the motto of Relief Society on front.  I love it.  I decided I would try to make it have a boxed bottom and even install a zipper at the opening.

Here is the front of the bag as we received it.

The zipper was pretty easy to install after the fact.  Most times you would install a zipper before sewing up the sides of the bag.  Originally I thought of making an inset zipper then thought to try it just by itself.  It worked.  I did have to do a little horizontal sewing to attach the zipper to the sides of the bag at the top.  That worked, too. After attaching the long end of the zipper I cut off the leftover zipper...maybe 7 inches.  When I find some YKK zipper pulls I will be able to make a small zippered pouch.  Bonus!

Boxing in the bottom of the bag was such an easy affair...after first stitching up the edges instead of stitching across the bottom!  AND of course I stitched a much wider box than I could have.  Oh well, it works perfectly.

Since writing the above and well after boxing this bag, I watched a video which was so useful...or would have been if I had watched it first!  I used method number two and did NOT cut off the extra "ear" of fabric.  I feel like it stays sturdier.