Repurpose & Reuse – making the coolest school bag

So, the other day my daughter Sol (16) came to me with her old school bag and asked me if I could possibly repair and save it.

As she have used that bag every single day at school the last three years it’s possibly needless to say that bag was totally worn out.

I told her I could possibly repair it but it wouldn’t last long anyway. I told her she needed a new bag …but true story, she didn’t look happy at all.

Now she’s away at a last minute vacation just before school starts, and I decided I wanted to surprise her with a new school bag when she gets back home.

Proud to say my girls are really into sustainable, earth friendly, reuse, repurpose and all that kind of things …. so making her a school bag out of a re-purposed dungaree skirt should be perfect.

I want to share this project as inspiration.

This is not a step-by-step instruction or anything, but I’ll share how I made the school bag and hopefully you might find inspiration.

I’ve used the shoulder straps from her old school bag (they still looks and works perfect )

I’ve used an old dungaree skirt, 1×1 meter cotton fabric (this was bought at Panduro as a leftover piece of fabric), cotton ribbon (4cm wide) 1,6 meter length , key-rings, cabin hooks, 10.6 mm eyelets to make holes in each corner of the bag, a 40cm zipper, blue thread to the sewing machine, and a metal “locker” to make the shoulder strap adjustable. I added in a little iron-on bird as decoration.

I started out stitching along the bottom of the skirt to make it like a bag. I continued making holes in all 4 corners of the bag and added 10,6mm eyelets.

Then I had coffee. ☕️

I measured the dungaree skirt/ bag, I folded the cotton fabric and decided to make the inside of the bag in double fabric. This will make it more sturdy and it will last longer.

I folded the fabric so it was shaped like a W – that would create two rooms/ two pockets inside the bag. I cut the fabric after measurements from the dungaree bag.

I stitched the cotton fabric so the stitches would be hidden between the inside fabric and the dungaree.

I added the zipper to the top of the “inner bag” or call it lining if you like.

When the inner bag / lining was finished I tucked it inside the dungaree bag and stitched it with machine stitches aprx 1cm from the top.

I wanted the cute flowery fabric to show a little bit, so I let it peek up aprx 5 mm above the dungaree edge.

Now I added the shoulder straps from her old school bag and attached them to the key rings at the lower corners and to the top belt straps of the skirt.

I wanted to make a separate shoulder strap so she can carry her bag like a shoulder bag. So I used the last piece of the flowery blue cotton fabric, I measured the cotton ribbon and made the fabric a little wider.

I made it double sided and stitched it together.

Then I added the key rings and cabin hooks and the metal lock to make the strap adjustable. When all these pieces was in place I stitched the fabric ribbon and the cotton ribbon together using the sewing machine.

Now I’ll just iron on the little bird on the back pocket and fill her bag with a couple of new note books, pencil and eraser… ready to take on new tasks.

This skirt-school bag is by the way perfect size for a laptop and A4 or letter size note books too.