Here’s a cute and easy cross body bag with room for a large phone, even in a bulky case! All you need is a few fat quarters (or regular quarter yard cuts) some batting, and this pattern: Quilted Cross Body Phone Tote
Video transcript:
Hi everyone I’m Paulette Morrissey from Tulip Square and this week I’m going to show you how to put together our brand new pattern that is for the new larger smartphones we’ve had a pattern for a long time that would make pattern would make a case for a smaller phones but I think I made it back when the iPhone 4 was popular so it’s they’re pretty small this one will hold the iPhone 13s the 14’s the big galaxies all of those the inside pocket is about 5 in wide on the on the inside of it and about little over seven maybe seven and a half inches long so it’ll hold all of the new larger phones if you watch to the end of the video there will be a link for you to download the pattern and we appreciate that you watch the whole video so that we it helps our YouTube numbers go up so we appreciate that a lot we’re going to head over to the sewing machine and let’s get started on this one so to start with you’re going to take your three pieces and I’m going to use this for the outside of my my tote bag I’m going to use this lighter fabric for the lining and then I’ve got a layer of cotton batting inside and what I’m going to do is just do some real simple straight line quilting on it just to give it a little bit of quilted texture you can do some free motion meandering you can just do some a grid line whatever just something to kind of hold the pieces together so I’m going to go ahead and do some quick quilting and then we’ll get started on putting it together
okay now that I’ve got it all quilted once you get it quilted you go and cut your pieces so I’m going to go cut the three pieces out and I’ll be right back okay we’ve got three pieces now the largest piece is our main tote piece second piece is our outer pockets and the third piece which is a little narrower is our pocket flap and so we’re going to start by taking the two bigger pieces and we’re going to sew binding on the top and bottom edge of each one so on the short ends of each one and you can either cut your binding 6 inches wide for each one or you can just sew them all like connected together so I’m just going to sew them all connected and cut them apart later then use a quarter inch seam
I’m just going to stick the next piece right in here to do chain stitching
now you turn the binding the opposite side like so
I’m just going to stitch real close to this folded down edge
now they’ve both got binding on both ends now the next one we’re going to do is this piece that’s going to be the flap but this one you’re going to need a piece about 30 inches long and I’m going to start it and put it way up here so I’ve got plenty of room to play with where I connect it and I’m going to start sewing way about down here so I’ve got this much that I can play with for connecting the two ends I’m going to sew all the way around quarter inch seams
And I’m going to sew this
the same way I sew any kind of binding on
stop about a quarter of an inch from the end
Take it out from under the sewing machine
then I like to take the binding and fold it so it’s parallel with the next line I’m going to be sewing on and I’m going to make sure I got a nice straight fold there and I’m going to lay a ruler right along this top edge that I just sewed along and I’m going to fold this down so it’s even with this line that I’m going to sew next
Make sure it’s nice and parallel and then I’m going to pull my ruler out and I’m going to sew my next row next edge
Ruler parallel to the line at the edge I just sewed along and then fold this down so it’s parallel to the next edge ruler out and sew that line so I’m going to do that all the way around and when I get to this last corner I’m going to sew it down the same as before but I’m only going to make a very short seam here
okay now I’ve got this big gap here where I can sew the two ends together so what I’m going to do is I’m going to cut a piece off the end of this binding extra piece and I’m going to lay it about in the middle of this opening
With the fold going this way the fold in the binding not with the edge this way and it’s about in the middle then I’m going to take where I started from my beginning edge and I’m going to lay it down on top of that and I’m going to cut it off right here on this side of this little scrap I put there nice straight cut I want it even with that piece and then I’m going to take the second half and I’m going to fold it over and I’m going to cut it off even with this half of that piece I just put down make sure you only cut through this layer and not the one underneath it
And now I’ve got both of those here so what they’re basically are doing is they’re overlapping the width of the binding and that’s what you need them to do next I’m going to cut these annoying pieces of thread off and then I’m going to open both of these edges up and this is easiest if I just fold this piece in half and I’m going to sew these two together diagonally right across from here to here now to do that because this is kind of tight quarters I like to just get the first edge where I want it and get that edge under the sewing machine where I want it and catch it
and you can pin this also if it’s easier
Just going to do a couple of stitches right here
Then I can kind of rearrange the rest of it make it cooperate a little bit better
I’m following this black line on my sewing machine
now once you take that out if you pull it like this and you lay it down you can see if it’s a good fit there or not that looks like it’s going to fit fine so I’m going to just pull this up double check
and I’m going to cut off excess corner
I’m just going to press a finger press it flat and now I’m just going to lay this down and finish the seam
now we turn this to the other side and stitch it down just like we did with the end pieces
when I get to a corner and show you if I can get in here a little better and show you
I stick my thumb underneath and push up so that whole little corner gets turned right side out and then I take the next edge not the one I’m working on the next edge fold it up and then if you tuck your thumb I mean poke your finger right in this corner you’ll get a nice mitered corner you see that nice mitered corner and if it’s not mitered well like if it kind of looks sloppy like this then you need to fold it under a little bit more and if it’s folded under too far it will come out folded up there so you just have to play with it a little bit but that when you tuck it you get a nice mitered corner and then when you sew you sew right to that point
And then turn and I’m going to tuck the next corner up before I get to it we can do the same thing on all the corners all the way around okay so next you’re going to take the largest piece and the flap piece and you want to put the probably want about fold it in half not exact but somewhere around there and you’re going to put half of it like so and I think I’ll pin this just so it doesn’t move around on me
Want it even on both sides
Now make sure you’ve got it spaced so that you’ve got an equal amount of your excess on both sides here you want a little more than a quarter of an inch on each side okay and then you’re going to stitch down right on the edge of this binding and then right about past it put two rows of stitching right here
What you’ve got is this
This is going to be the tote bag and it’s going to be like this like so and that will be the pocket flap that comes over the top now we’re going to put pockets in place I’m going to put one right here and I’m going to lower that one a little bit like so and then I’m going to bring it around to the back of the back so the back one is like so
a little bit different you don’t want them to end up so they’re right on top of each other in the seam because that’ll make the seam you know like you don’t want them right there that’s too much bulk in the seam okay so now you’ve got all this what you’re going to do and you can pin this together clip it together whatever you want you just want to make sure that all your pieces stay nice and uniform now to start this you’re going to take your longer strip of binding
I’m going to leave about maybe 3/4 of an inch hanging off here although wait that’s we don’t want the selvedge that’s too thick but it’s selvedge and then I’ll just leave about 3/4 of an inch hanging loose okay and then I’m going to sew through all these layers now when you sew through this many layers take your time make sure you don’t catch your flap should be far enough away that if you’re doing a quarter inch seam your flap will not get caught in here be careful of that and push it out of your way if you need to and push it back for the next side
Going to stitch down here now and go slow because it’s a lot of layers and you might want to put in a larger size needle I put in like a size 14 which is more like for sewing denim and things like that just because it’s a lot of layers
When I come to the top here
Take that off like that
Now when you do this next part you’ve got to be careful not to twist your binding so make sure that your binding comes straight up like so so this is the top folded edge coming off from this folded edge okay I’m going to shorten it up a little bit and see what I’m doing but it’s the straight top edge coming straight up and then you bring this all the way down the other end leave a little 3/4 of an inch or so and this one you can either start sewing from here or you can start sewing from here whichever way is easier for you not an issue
so now you’ve got this you’ve got your both halves on like this and you’ve got your whole strap on so what you’re going to do is turn this over
And where you’ve got your first edge like this take this edge here and tuck it up more than if you would just tuck it even across you’re going to tuck it a little bit exaggerated and then fold it up here
and bring this corner down so you’ve got a nice sealed edge then you’re going to start stitching your binding on
this too has to be slow and careful because it’s thick
I would suggest you are using thread the same color as your binding because it’s going to be part of your strap in a minute now when you get up to this point here you’re going to take your binding and you’re going to fold the raw edge up just like about a third of the width of it and then you’re going to fold the folded edge down and you’re going to sew along that folded edge all the way around the length of the binding which becomes
now when you get close to your other end of your tote you just will continue going you’ll get close here keep sewing that strap
When you get close you’re just going to fold it up and go a little closer
Little bit of a jog then continue sewing your binding on before I get too close to the end I’m going to fold this end up a little bit I’m going to fold this up all the way and I’m going to tuck that inside so we have no raw exposed edges and I’m going to backtack
You can put a little closure on here and it’s all set hope that was easy enough for you and don’t be intimidated by it it’s an easy project and it’s fun to do
okay so now you know everything there is to know about making a larger case for your phone it’s got lots of pockets it’s got a front pocket here it’s got your largest pocket here that’s seven and a half by 7 and 1/2 inches long by a little over 5 inches wide it’s got a smaller little pocket right here and then it’s got a big pocket on the back which is also big enough to hold a phone and you got a flap that you can either put a snap or a button on if you want to you can also just tuck it into your front pocket if you prefer it will fit in there
but it will fit in your in your pocket and also I wanted to mention that if you’re taking these to fairs and selling them we used to take it a similar phone case to fairs and we found that the crossbody straps were the most popular when we ran out of crossbody straps the shorter straps like this was for a shoulder strap and little ones that we had that were just a wristlet those didn’t sell it was the crossbody’s everybody wanted so just a little thing you might want to know and the video for this should be showing up right no no this is the video the pattern should be showing up a link for the pattern should be somewhere right up here for you to download it right now and please hit the like button hit the notify bell if you’d like to be notified every week be sure to hit the Subscribe button and we will see you next week for the new brand new video have a good week bye-bye