Skirt to Bag Upcycle - A Tutorial

I've made bag from one of my daughter's old skirts before and it turned out really well:

So when I was sorting through a new pile of clothes to upcycle and found another skirt I knew it would make a pretty bag - and thought I'd make a tutorial to show how easy it is to prolong the life of an old favourite skirt by making it into a pretty and useful bag!

So here's how:

First take your skirt (this one was lined)

Cut a strip around 10cm (4") wide from the bottom of the skirt. This is what you'll use for the straps.

Main bag part

Next you need to stitch the outside base of your bag.

Turn your skirt inside out and fan the skirt right out:

Unless you want your bag to be like a big semi-circle, you'll need to fold the skirt in before pinning and stitching.

I just folded the edges in on either side like this:

But you could get creative here and do pleats all around - or just in the front, or fold and pin however you choose to make your bag your style!

Pin and stitch across the base of the skirt, which will form the base of your bag:

Turn your bag right sides out.

Now if your skirt is lined, you need to stitch across the bottom of this.

First lay it out of the bag like this, and trim if necessary:

Then fold the raw edges of the lining inside on themselves and pin closed:

 Push the lining inside the skirt and your main bag part is finished!

Straps

Take the strip you cut from the bottom of your skirt at the start, and place above your bag where you want the straps to be. Cut 2 strips the length you desire:

For each strap, fold the short end over, then the longer sides to the middle, then fold all in half lengthways and stitch along all 4 edges:

So now you should have 2 finished straps:

Attach straps to main bag

Now all you need to do is place the straps where you want them on your bag and pin into place:

Sew each strap to the bag, using a rectangle with a cross through the middle for extra strength:

Now your bag is finished!

For the free downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here.

And for more ideas on upcycling skirts you can follow my 

Skirt Upcycling Pinterest Board.

And for over 600 ideas for upcycling all different types of clothes - take a look at the clothes upcycling linky page here.

Happy Upcycling