Sew a Bag: A Beginner’s Guide to Hand Sewing

Sewing is a time-honored tradition that’s functional and purposeful, and is the foundation for almost all clothing and accessories as we know them today. While most books dedicated to this topic focus on machine-sewing, there’s a simpler side to this craft, and learning the techniques and skills needed to hand-sew open up a wide world of possibilities from hemming your own garments to sewing on buttons to repairing beloved closet items to making your own new pieces, like the fold-over clutch featured here. Sew a Bag will introduce readers to hand-sewing, focusing on the basics and the techniques most applicable to sewing that can then be extended to a wide variety of projects in the future. Establishing the building blocks here will encourage crafters to try new ideas and develop their own style as they progress, but it all will start with a simple pattern.