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Originally I made this bag about a month or so ago for a friend. Of course I showed it off on my Facebook and at my favorite chicken chat forums (backyardchickens.com) Oh and if you don't know this about me, my chicken coop is featured as the a frame chicken house in their Raising Chickens for Dummies book!
I have been asked to make bags for all sorts of folks but I am just not looking for another way to make money. So instead I am making this tutorial for all you lovely people who love chickens and recycling.
First things first, you need one of these feed bags (I think horse feed and other types of feed come in this stuff now too)
1. cut the bottom and top of the bag so that the lines are nice and straight and then turn it inside out, and serge or sew the bottom of the bag (look inside to make sure it's the bottom cause you don't want your bag to be upside down when you turn it back right side out)
2. once you have the bottom secured, you need to fold the bottom so that the sewn or serged line is at the bottom and it triangulates to make a square flat bottom.
3. Sew the crease to keep it flat bottomed.
4. Here is where it gets a little tricky. Now you are going to attempt to turn the bag right side out again and then flatten the sides down enough to get the bottom of the bag onto the sewing machine so you can sew the triangle flaps onto the bottom of the bag. You could always cut them off but if you are going to be using the bag for heavier items you will want this extra support.***
Once that is all done it should look like this inside.
and outside it should stand up quite nicely.
You are more than halfway there...
5. Now that we have that all finished you will want to trim the top about 4 inches (save this for the handles), then fold down and hem the top all the way around.
6. for the handles what I like to do is fold them in half and fold in the cut edges and then sew all the way around so both sides of the handle are hemmed.
7. Here it's going to take a little play, since every bag is different you will want to make sure the handles are exactly the same length. I do this by making identical marks on both sides of the bag, I know you only see two but there are 4 marks total.
8. Sew the fist handle in place using a box method, I go forward and back several times to ensure a good bond.
I measure and mark my second handle to ensure everything is perfectly aligned. Then sew on the second handle.
TA DA! You have finished your bag!
It takes me between 30 minutes to an hour to finish a bag.
Have fun!
**** Edited to add that if you don't want to sew down the triangles on the inside you can glue them down.
