Mermaid Craft: Dice Bag

Anyone else been using lockdown and all this extra time at home as an excuse to get crafty for presents? I have. My big box of clothes too pretty to throw out is slowly dwindling! But that is a good thing. As is the fact that I have been doing a lot of sewing. I am slowly getting better, stitches getting straighter, and projects more adventurous! Seriously, I made a dinosaur tail belt. I may have forgotten how circles work in the process, but it actually looks like a dinosaur tail.

This craft post is not about the tail though. Sorry, I genuinely have no idea how I managed to make it and very much used the shape of the trousers I made it from to my advantage! Instead, I am sharing how to made a cute dice bag. I only call it a "dice bag" because two of the three people who received these are likely to use them to hold their dice collections.

Due to the nature of the fabrics I used, I ended up making these three different ways. But the core principles remained the same. Plus, from what I learned making the first I adapted the method to make life easier for myself. I am mainly talking about the ribbon tie here. On the first bag, I folded down the lip and sewed it all without putting the ribbon in. I then spent about thirty minutes trying to feed it through with a variety of long things to "aid" in the process. It was fiddly AF. On the next two, I put the ribbon in place before sewing and it was so much easier. Sort of. I may have sewn the ribbon to the fabric on one of them, just a little bit.

It is still the better method. Trust me.

The other major variation was that the first was two bits of cloth sewn together, whereas the next two were one folded in half. It worked really well on the one, it looked like a proper little pouch. If I had been making the other bag for anyone other than my brother in law, I would have been worried about how huge it opened and how boxy it was. But I know how many dice he has and figured that the wide opening would actually be pretty useful in scooping them all back into the bag.

The basic shape

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• Scissors
• Needle, pins, and thread
• Fabric - either one to fold, or two the same size
• Ribbon or string
  

These are pretty simple to put together, especially if you opt for the one piece of fabric over two. The only really fiddly bit is making the string-pull bit. I don't know technical names. But you know the bit I mean.

Do not make this mistake - get your ribbon in!

METHOD

1. Select your fabric and whether you are making the bag from one or two pieces. For one, just cut a decent sized rectangle out of your fabric. Make sure it makes a big enough bag when folded in half. Alternatively, cut two pieces of fabric to the size you want the bag to be.
   
2. Lay or fold your fabric with the patterned side on the inside. Pin the long sides of your fabric and the bottom edge if you are using two pieces. If folding, the bottom edge has already been made by the fold. Do not pin the top edges together.
3. Instead, using your ribbon/string for reference, fold down the top edge to create the loop where the ribbon/string will eventually go. Don't put it in just yet because it will just get in the way. For now, this is just so you don't sew too far. The bag is inside-out, presently, so the fold should be on the inside. As in, the side you are working on. (Gosh this is hard to explain!) This just means the final product will look neater. Do this on both sides of the top edge.
   
4. Get yourself a nice long bit of thread and sew your edges! At the time, I sewed in one direction and then turned back on myself to fill in the gaps. This works but if I were to do it now, I would use a back stitch which essentially achieves the same thing but is less time consuming. If going for the folding method, don't sew your bottom edge. Obviously.
5. Brilliant, you are most of the way there! Now for the fiddly bit.
6. Get your ribbon and place it under the fold. You can completely unpin and re-pin once it's in place or you can do the dumb thing I did: try and feed it in, only unpinning one at a time. I do not recommend, it is probably easier to just re-pin the whole thing.
7. Don't forget to feed it through to the underside. Both ends of your ribbon/string should be on the same side.
8. Sew the bottom edge of your fold to the side of fabric it is from. What I mean here is that you don't want to sew the opening closed. Be careful of your ribbon/string and try not to sew it to the fabric. It will make it more difficult to open and close the bag.
9. I recommend starting at the end with the excess ribbon. That way when you get to the other end, you can either just keep going around or simply do a couple stitches on the opposite side to bring the edges together.
10. Once you're done sewing, turn that bad boy the right way around and you are done!

Those stitches are almost straight!

Easy peasy! And they make great little gifts. I really enjoyed making these. Working without a pattern made me really stop and think about where I was putting my needle. I learned a lot from it. With them being relatively quick to make, there is the added bonus that you go from raw material to something that actually looks like what you intended to make in no time at all. A real boost to the confidence, if I do say so myself!

Will you be having a go at this project? They would be useful for more than just dice, I promise. Do you have any ideas to suggest for future sewing projects? Or would you like one! Lemme know, below.

Made using Canva

Bonus: A visual reminder for putting in the ribbon before you sew the top edge. Avoid this faff!

Sooooooooo fiddly!

Listening to: All Out 80s