Sewing Lessons

A lady at work is graciously teaching me to sew, and of course I first wanted to make something for my bicycle.

I have two bikes: my Dahon commuter "real" bike and my Huffy cruiser "errand-running" bike.

On the rear rack of the errand-running bike, I've attached a ridiculously roomy Wald basket. It can fit an amazing amount of groceries.

Sewing Teacher helped me design and make a liner/removable grocery bag to go inside of it (coordinated to match the bike's color scheme, of course, because I'm a big girl).

First we made the pattern by laying brown craft paper inside the basket & marking to get its shape.

Next we cut pieces from a coordinating fabric for the liner, and sewed it together (leaving the bottom open for later).

Now we cut pieces from the outer fabric & some buckram for stiffness. Sewed the outer cover & the buckram together along the bottom seams but left the top open.

We attached the handles to the bag before sewing the liner in to the top of the bag, making sure to get the liner, outer cover, and buckram all folded together with the liner hidden just under the top.

And finally we turned the liner inside-out, pulling the rest of the bag through the still-open bottom of the liner (so we didn't have a bunch of seams showing), before hand-stitching that bottom seam shut.

It fits perfectly in to the basket & is going to be such a delight to take to the grocery & farmer's market!