Drawstring Backpack Tutorial

 This bag can be used for anything! Quite often in our house it's used as a gym bag, but it's just the right size that it can be used for a lot of other things.

 What you need...

1/2 yard fabric
4 yards cord/string
coordinating thread

Cut two 14 inch X 18.5 inch pieces of fabric.

 Start by ironing over each side. Start with the longer sides (18.5 inches). Fold the sides over 1/2 inch and iron down.

After the long sides are ironed over, iron 1/2 inch over on one of the short sides of each piece of fabric. The other half will be the top.

Next, iron over the top side (the side that hasn't been ironed yet.) Fold it over 3/4 of an inch and iron.

Fold the side over another 1 inch. Iron down.

Once all the sides are ironed, the fabric pieces should look like this.

Unfold the top flap (the one we folded and ironed down twice) and zig-zag stitch it down. It's the 3/4 inch piece.

Line it up just like so.

It should look like this when you're done stitching.

Fold it over on the 1 inch crease.

Sew that down, too. Try sewing close to the edge. If you don't sew close enough, your string may not fit through. Hopefully this picture gives you an idea of how close mine was sewn (about 1/4 of an inch).

Line up the bottom of the two fabric pieces (the shorter side opposite the one that was double folded/ironed).

Sew the bottom together. Line the sewing foot up with the outside edge of the fabric.

When they're sewn together, it should look like this when you pull them apart.

Take your string and find the halfway point.

Tape it...

...And cut it in half.

Put a safety pin on the end of one of the halves.

Line up the tops of your pieces of fabric.

With the pin side of the string, thread it through the opening in the top of the bag in one of the pieces of fabric.

Once the string is out the other side...

Loop it through the other piece of fabric and pull through to the other side, the same side you first threaded the string through.

When the string is pulled through, it should look like this.

Attach the pin to the other piece of string. Thread this piece through as well, starting on the side where the strings are not hanging out.

Once the pin gets to the other side, thread it through the top of the other fabric piece.

When both strings have been threaded through the top, it should look like this.

Next, turn the bag inside out.

Tuck the strings inside.

Position the ends of the strings at the very bottom of each side. Have the strings that come out of the right side be positioned at the bottom of the right side of the bag, for example.

Sew over the strings, making sure to back stitch over them.

Stop sewing at this point, when you reach the top part that is folded over. Once you've sewed over both sides, turn your bag right side out and you're done!

Pretty easy, and now you have a bag that you can use for just about anything!