Twin baby changing bag

I have at last finished the commission for a twin baby changing bag. When I received the fabric, I had to swallow twice. It was a polyester waterproof fabric - polyester on one side and a sort of thin rubber, waterproofing agent on the reverse side. The same for the lining, just a different colour, and a medium weight cotton fabric for the piping and the pockets.

The inside of the bag had to have three compartments and pockets on the side. I started with the inside:

I had never made divider panels like this before, so it took me a while to figure out how to go about it but it worked out okay.

After I made the divider panels and the pockets for the inside these panels, I decided to do part of the outside:

The back and the front are, except for the small slip pocket, the same and have large zippered pockets.

After the two front panels I put the piping on these panels, made outside slip pockets with elastic at the top and fastened these to the gusset.

Up until here I was not sure whether I would be able to finish this project or not. The fabric was very stiff and the size of the bag made it difficult to handle. On the other hand, it would be worse for a small project. However, things started to look up from here and I just had to finish the inside.

I added six feet to the bottom of the bag!

I finished off the inside and placed it inside the outside part of the bag. Just the zipper and side panels to be attached and that would be it!

Of course, because of the divider panels, I could not use the normal method of sewing the two sides together and because it is very difficult to iron the fabric and get a neat seam, I had to come up with a different method and used bias tape made of the cotton I also used for the piping and pockets.

Front

Back

Top 

Open zip

Completely open

I am very pleased with the results and have learned various things while making this bag. 

On the negative side:

I don't like working with this fabric. Is is too stiff and it is very difficult to iron. Even if you get the temperature of the iron right, so that you don't melt the fabric, it tends to slip sideways and you do not get the fold where you want it.

On the positive side:

I am now very confident in sewing piping. I have used it previously but on this project I really got the hang of it. I now know how to put divider panels in a bag and how to make my own bias tape (I want a bias tape maker, though, to make it quicker and easier). I also know that I have to buy another sewing machine. The one I am using here at the moment was a very cheap one from Lidl, however, it is amazing what you can do even with a cheap sewing machine. There were only a few times where I had to stop and leave it for a while but all in all, it handled this bag not too badly!