Following the success of our Hove tote pattern release last year, we decided to continue our foray into accessories in 2025. We loved how our community received the idea of new patterns inspired by old, and so we decided to look to our pattern catalogue for inspiration again.
And, because our beloved patternmaker, Alys recently moved back to the UK, we thought we’d share what it’s like to create a pattern design across continents with the help of modern communication channels like Zoom, Google docs and Whatsapp!
HOW THE DARLOW BAG DESIGN CAME TO BE
I had been thinking for a while that I’d like to do a twist on a bumbag or crossbody bag, and Alys suggested we use the Darlow pants as inspiration. She thought the curved seams would make for a really interesting design with the panels twisting around the bag, and I agreed.
Following this, I shared some inspiration images I’d found scrolling through Pinterest and we discussed which elements we liked. We to’ed and fro’ed with inspiration for a bit, and eventually realised one of the main features we were drawn to was interesting strap details connected to the main body.
So with this, Alys got to work playing around with the Darlow pants pattern to see what she could come up with.
Firstly, she arranged the main curved pieces of the Darlow pants pattern and scaled them down to 75% so they were the right proportion for a bag compared to a torso.
She then assembled the three curved pattern pieces of the Darlow pants, and played around with them to see what shapes she could create that might resemble the body of a bag.
Through this process, Alys considered how the bag would look on the body, checking shape, proportion and scale. As you can see, Alys was still working with paper when doing this!
After this, Alys felt it was time to get some feedback from me, which happened to be via Whatsapp very late at night! (One of the difficulties of working with a team on opposite sides of the world!)
After we decided to add some length to the pattern, Alys went ahead and began converting her paper bag into a pattern and sewing up the first sample.
We went back and forth after this via videos and photos to fine-tune the design, making decisions like adding some volume to the pattern and moving the bottom seam so it sat towards the back rather than be visible on the front.
After working on the strap panel, our initial bag pattern was complete!
But this is just the start of designing a sewing pattern. The next stages were finalising the bag construction, which involved many more toiles and samples between both myself and Alys as we continued to fine-tune the design. It ends up being months of work, because we’re always working on a number of patterns at one time.
But we can definitely say that we loved working on creating the Darlow bag pattern together (albeit digitally and on different continents!), and we hope that you enjoy making it as much as we enjoyed designing it!
Happy sewing,
Emily