Sometimes sewing tasks require you to bend things, weave them and poke them in different directions and for the slightly directionally challenged, that can be an absolute nightmare. Adjustable straps for bags come under this category. They are actually easy but at first can seem like a bit of a puzzle.

Of course you can buy ready made. Sometimes. But it is also nice to know how to do something so that you can just whip one up to suit yourself (and match perfectly to your project). You can get the size that you need too which is a great bonus.

So, only a short(ish) post today but super useful because these straps are found on just about any bag and you can also swap one pretty easily if you don’t like the strap that the designer has used.

I actually have a separate post if you want to take things up a notch and make a funky guitar strap for your bag. It is the same principle but with some changes. You can find that blog post here.

And did you know that backpack straps are made using the same principle? So long as the bag has a bag slider, it is meant to be adjustable. It can be one strap as you see here on the Windermere Sling Bag

Or the usual classic two straps as on the Barcelona Backpack

But for today we are concentrating on pretty simple. So what do we need to make an adjustable bag strap?

• A length of webbing for the strap. The pattern will tell you how wide and the width of the strap is important because it has to match the width of the hardware. Two very commonly used widths used are 1 1/2″ and 1″. I use only pure cotton webbing because it looks classier and less like a seatbelt. Avoid anything shiny unless you are going for a particular look.

• Hardware. This means a bag slider and either two rectangle rings (for a non-removable strap) or two D- rings and two swivel clips if you want to be able to take the strap on and off. The picture below shows some commonly used hardware. The top one is the bag slider, the next one shows the rectangle rings and the last is the D-ring and swivel clip combo. This is not an exhaustive collection by any means and you can find the same thing in a few different styles (and qualities).

In your pattern, you will be told how to cut the tabs and how big they are to be etc, etc so don’t worry about the ins and outs of that at the moment. The aim of this post is to show you how to fold the strap.

Before we get started, you will notice that my strap has a fabric trim. This is really easy to do and you can match it to your bag. Simply cut a strip exactly as wide as your strap and 3″ longer than you need (my strap is 57″ so I have cut the fabric strip about 60″. You can join the fabric strip if you need to). Fold the sides of the fabric strip to the wrong side by 1/4″, press well and use double sided tape to place the strip right down the centre of your webbing strap

Topstitch on making sure that you match your thread to the fabric on top and your bobbin thread to the webbing so that the stitching is pretty much invisible

The 3″ extra is so that you can fold it under the ends (I will show you this when we get to that bit) and that makes it all look neater and helps to stop the webbing fraying. If you are not using the fabric trim, simply ignore this bit or stow it away for later in case you need it and simply use the webbing as it is.

The first thing that the pattern will tell you to do is to use either Fray Stopper or clear drying glue on both ends of the strap to stop it from fraying. Webbing is woven and it will happily unravel if you are not careful. So treat the ends. When the treatment is dry, trim and bits away if you need to

The next thing will be to fasten one end of your strap to the middle bar of the bag slider. When you put the strap through the middle bar, fold it over by the amount that it is wide. So, this time ours is 1 1/2″ wide so I fold it over by 1 1/2″. If it was 1″ wide, you would fold it over by 1″. That is a general rule but it looks nice and neat. I never fold the webbing under. This is usually too bulky and not necessary if you have treated the ends

Going back a small step, if you have chosen the fabric trim option, fold that over the treated end of the webbing so that everything is really neat. You may have to trim it slightly and a bit of glue is helpful for keeping it in place

So fold the end over the middle bar of the bag slider and sew it on. You can do this by hand or machine. I prefer by hand because it is neater and every bit as strong

Now for the origami bit (don’t worry, it is super easy and we will take it step by step). You will have your two rectangle rings or, if you are making detachable, you will have your two swivel clips. If you have rectangle rings, they will be already attached to the bag by tabs of some sort (the pattern will give you these details specifically) and the putting on of the strap is actually one of the last tasks.

I am going to show you the process on swivel clips but it is exactly the same for rectangle rings. The swivel clips will not be attached to anything

Lay the bag slider down so that the folded over part is facing up and the slider is face down. Take the free end of the strap through the rectangle ring or swivel clip on the right hand side

Now bring it back through the bag slider. This means UNDER the first bar (on the right), OVER the middle bar (where the other end of the strap is already attached) and the UNDER the second bar (on the left)

When you tighten everything up it will look like this from the top

And like this from the side. As you can see, the raw edge is hidden in the folds of the strap

That is the ‘difficult bit’ over and done with! Finally, take the free end to either the rectangle ring or swivel clip on the left hand side and attach it, folding it over just as you did when you started with the middle bar of the bag slider.

You need all of your fold-overs to be on the ‘inside’ of the strap, that is to say, hidden when the bag is in use. The quickest way to see if you have this right is to check that the last fold is towards the plain side of the webbing (if you have a fabric trim) and if you don’t have the trim, the fold should be on the same side as the underside of the bag slider

When you are happy, stitch the end on and you are done!

I do hope that has been of some help. Once you get the idea of these, they are really easy and you find them on so many bags so it is quite handy to know how to make them.

The floral bag you have seen a bit in this post is my new Paris Cross-Body bag and it will be available shortly in all of my shops. Be sure to sign up to my blog because for its first week, the pattern will be 30% off!

And to see what I did with the adjustable strap, I will have a new blog post about that very soon too and you will find that here (link coming very soon, I promise).

’til next time!

Hugs, Debbie xx