Sewing on a Budget - Garment Bag for a Communion Dress

This is a more unusual project to pick for sewing on a budget, but as I am working on a special occasion dress it seemed to be very appropriate.

My nieces Communion dress is coming along well and with fittings needed, I also had to have some way of transporting the dress (other than covering it with a large bin bag!!!)

So I made a garment bag with fabric and notions from Abakhan Fabrics.

The pattern is from Modkid by Patty Young and in my stash for a few years. There is also another adult-sized pattern available from the Sew Daily shop, on sale at the moment for $4.20

I sewed it with some alterations. It is much longer and also has French seams on the outside edges to help give the bag structure. The zipper tapes are enclosed between the fabric and the lining, rather than sewn onto the fabric. As the outer fabric is a heavier weight cotton, I decided against using interfacing.

The seams at the opening for the hanger on top are folded under twice and sewn, so there are no raw edges inside. Ribbon seam-binding was used to make a zipper pull.

 

 

 

The construction is very similar to the construction of regular sized handbags, except on a much larger scale!

 

Making sure all the seams were hidden was particularly important for this garment bag, as the dress has an outer layer of chiffon, and I wanted to be sure that the fabric didn't snag on anything scratchy inside.

 

 

 

The cost of the fabric and notions for this project were:

Wide curtain weight Polycotton sateen £5.99 per metre x1

Wide White Sheeting fabric £4.99 per metre x1

Grey seam binding £0.30 per metre x 5 = £1.50

Communion Ribbon £0.55 per metre x 1

Long zip £2.05 (had this in my stash)

Total = £13.03

(I only used half of the fabrics because of the width and have about 4 metres of seam binding left, so that total could be reduced by £6.70. Allowing for the cost of the zip, this project could be sewn for less than £10)

The bag was finished with a little freehand application of ribbon seam-binding, to personalise it. My niece's face lit up when she saw this, so I'm glad I didn't resort to the ubiquitous 'bin bag' cover instead!!!

 

(The fabric and notions for this garment bag were chosen by me and supplied by Abakhan Fabrics, free, as part of their challenge to sew on a budget)

 

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