Easy Sueet Lining - by Hand

Choose your lining. Have a pile of old clothes that you don't wear anymore but don't want to toss quite yet? Check, perhaps you'll find something you can use. To the left, a pair of maternity pants and some tees the kiddo had outgrown that were delegated to 'play clothes. In want of keeping peace in the house I didn't use the rose print tee...yet.

Okay, you measured your purse before you bound off the bottom yes? If not measure now the width (double it) and the height. You want to cut your lining one inch wider and 1 1/2 - 2 inches longer than the actual measurement. The extra fabric is for the seam allowance. Cut the lining out.

Sew side seam with thread that actually resembles the color of your lining. Make sure the right sides of the fabric are facing each other.Sew the seam about 1/2 inch from the edge of the fabric Knot the end of your thread, push it thru front to back so the knot is facing you, bring the needle back thru close to where the first stitch went in. Next about 1 cm to the right needle goes again to the back of the 2 pieces then to the front another cm to the right. The next stitch will start mid point between the last 2 points (or 1/2 a cm before the point where you just pulled the needle from). Continue till the end of the side in this manner. Knot the thread.

Now do the same thing for the bottom seam. Do the gussets the same as you did on the body of the bag. And now you have a floppy looking sackish sort of thing.

Don't forget the bottom piece! Manilla folders, cereal boxes or the like work fine doubled. Round the corners and cover with another piece of your lining. Duct tape is SO handy! Top hem fitting: Now try the lining on er in for size. The best way to see how big of a top hem you need to make.

Top hem. If you are using a non fraying sort of fabric you can actually skip this part and start pinning the lining to the body of the bag. If you have chosen something satiny/silky/looseweave you probably have a lot of stray fibers on the edges. Fold the fabric down to form a hem (remember you're folding the right side back over the wrong side) half the distance of what you determined during the top hem fitting then fold the fabric once more so the frayed edges are now inside the roll of the hem. Pin it so don't have to keep fighting it, if you want to give it a quick press along the edge w/ an iron, now is the time to do it. If you have hem tape, use that, test on a scrap first to make sure you will be happy with how it holds your fabric then skip the rest of the hem sewing part.

Knot the yarn. Starting right below the hem bring the thread thru the body of the lining and the edge of the hem. The goal is to pick up as little from the body of the lining i.e. only a prick/couple of threads so the thread doesn't show thru a lot on the other side. Or, you can always pick up more and go with the philosophy that it is a 'feature not a flaw', whatever works best for you.

The final stretch. Sewing the lining in. Start by pinning the lining matching side seams to the side seam of the bag. Then do the center side seams then the rest, you can adjust the bag as you pin if you find any variances of the size of your bag and the lining at this point. Garter stitch here is rather forgiving. Before you start the final bit of sewing make sure you put in that bottom piece. Knot the end of the thread, start it from the wrong side of the lining going to the inside of the bag so the knot stays hidden between the bag and lining. Next from right next to where the thread is coming out of the lining you want to send it back thru so it comes out about a centimeter to the right. Same thing going from the bag to the lining, start the stitch close to where the last one came out and angle it about a cm to the right. This keeps the visible thread to a minimum.

Continue around the bag making any adjustments as you need on the way. Do a couple stitches back to the left then sew a knot ,push needle with remaining thread back thru to lining, cut thread then give the lining a little tug so the end of the thread goes back into the space between lining and bag.

Hope this was of help! - Wendy

So you've just finished that last row of garter and the purse you've spent hours on is looking mighty fine. Why not add in that lining, even if you don't have a sewing machine or a ton of experience, hey, you can knit..how hard can it really be?

I hope someone out there gleans something of use from this and my efforts haven't been for not, I mean c'mon, I used green yarn on the lining just so you could see what I was doing.

Disclaimer: Yes, I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but this is what I did imagining what I could do ift I didn't know how to sew etc. If you have any words of wisdom to add or questions etc. let me know..