A bag for Melisandre and a pilgrim

With a heatwave raging, and temperatures soaring to 35 Celsius, being able to carry water is essential. I wanted to be able to carry a bottle of water, but being discrete about it, which ruled out any of my normal bags.

I made a simple bag out of the left overs from the dress. Really all the white lining that you can see was taken from the scraps left over when I cut out the dress, that also dictated the size of the bag.

I started with two rectangles for the back and front. The bottom and side was one continous piece of fabric
I sewed one rectangle to the bottom/side.

I also added a divider in the middle of the bag, so that the water bottle want fall down, and it will be eaiser to carry other stuff in it. When it was added I sewed the other rectangle to the bottom/sides as well. The bottom of the divider was fastened to the bottom piece with some hand stitches.

I now had a white bag.

I then made the strap, by sandwiching more of the cotton lining in between the red fabric.

I also reinforced the strap with some top stitching along the whole strap.

I sewed the strap to the lining.

I then sewed another bag in the red fabric, but without the divider and slipped it over the lining. The red fabric was folded over the lining to hide the raw edges of both fabrics.

Now I had a functionable bag, but I felt that it was missing something so I decided to make a top flap for it. I cut out a piece in both lining and red fabric. I also quilted the top part to give it a bit more structure, and because it looked nice.

I bound the edge with bias tape.

I then attached the flap to the side of the bag. Tada, a finished bag.

Inside of the bag

The bag worked great at NärCon, and it was so nice to be able to carry stuff with me. It wasn't as discrete as I had hoped though, since I also carried a white parasol hanging from it.

This kind of bag is similar to medieval pilgrim bags.

They are usually trapezoid in shape and made in what seams to be leather or coloured fabric. I made similar bag to the Melisandre bag, out of the leftover of the green wool. I had a larger piece of fabric, so instead of a separate flap I made the main fabric piece so long that I could fold it over the opening. Since the wool is sturdier than the poly dupioni I used for Melisandre I also didn't line this bag, it's just in one layer. Finally I added three tassels of wool yarn at the bottom, which seems to have been a very popular decoration. Now I had a more medieval-like bag to wear at Medieval Week in Visby.