digitizemypatternBag pattern making: from a bag you own
A bag pattern is a set of flat panels: front, back, gusset, base, straps, pockets and linings. The fastest way to get one is to copy a bag that already works, either by unpicking it or by templating its panels in card. Both end in flat shapes, and flat shapes photograph into cutting files you can repeat exactly.
Updated September 7, 2026 · digitizemypattern
Unpick the bag or template it?
Unpick when the bag is finished, worn or a sample you are allowed to destroy: the panels come off carrying the real shape, seam positions and every correction the maker already made. Template when the bag has to survive, panel by panel in card or film, accepting that the shape you draw is your reading of a curved object.
Take it apart
Photograph the bag from every side first, then unpick seam by seam and label each panel as it comes off. Leather and coated canvas keep needle holes, and those holes are the seam line.
Copy without cutting
Press card against each panel, mark the seam, cut the card and check it against the bag. Slower and less exact, but the bag stays whole.
Flatten before shooting
Panels off an old bag curl and hold the shape of years of use. Press them under weights before photographing, or the curl reads as a bump in the outline.
Why does repeatability matter more than the first bag?
Because the first bag is the cheap part. A card template is a single object: it wears at the edges, gets cut around, gets lost, and every copy of it drifts a little further from the original. Ten bags later the front panel is a different shape than it was, and nothing in the room records when it changed.
A file does not drift. The same DXF cuts the same panel this year and in three years, on a plotter, a CNC table or a printed sheet, and a change is a change you made on purpose. That is the whole difference between making a bag and making bags.
What do you get back from a photograph?
One flat panel with a sheet of Letter paper beside it comes back as a closed outline at true size, with notches marked where you cut or drew them and a grain line written into the file. Three formats: DXF on the AAMA and ASTM standard for CAD and cutting tables, a Letter-tiled PDF to print and tape at home, and HPGL PLT for plotters.
Print and tape
The tiled PDF prints at true size on ordinary Letter sheets. Check one printed page against a ruler before taping the whole sheet together.
Cricut and Silhouette
Panels for leather, cork and coated fabric can be cut on a home machine. The DXF opens in Design Space and Silhouette Studio, with internal marks kept on their own layer.
Plotter or CNC table
PLT is plain HPGL with clean pen-up and pen-down moves, and internal lines go to the second pen so a marker draws them instead of a knife cutting through.
What still has to be decided by hand?
Seam allowance, turn-of-cloth on thick leather, how much the gusset eases into the base, hardware positions and reinforcement. None of that is in the panel lying on the table, and nothing here adds it silently: what you photograph is what comes back. Add allowance in your CAD or on the material, the way your bench already works.
Questions from bag makers
Can I copy a bag without taking it apart?+
Only by templating. A bag on the table is a curved object, and a photograph of it has no flat shape to trace. Press card against each panel, cut it to the seam line, then photograph the card.
Does it work on leather panels?+
Yes, if the panel lies flat on a surface of a different colour. Dark leather on a dark table is the one case that fails: put it on a light surface, or on white paper large enough to sit under the whole panel.
What about straps and long pieces?+
The whole piece and the sheet of paper have to be in the frame together. For a long strap, shoot from further away and expect to correct a few more points by hand, or fold the shape out of a measured rectangle in CAD instead.
How do I keep left and right panels apart?+
Write the name on the panel before photographing and keep every piece face up. Each photograph becomes its own file, and the written name is the only thing that tells a mirrored pair apart later.
Will it mark the hardware positions?+
Only if they are marked on the panel. A line drawn across the edge is read as a notch, and lines inside the panel are kept on the internal layer. Holes and rivets are not detected as objects.
Can I sell a pattern made this way?+
The files are yours. Whether you may sell a pattern copied from somebody else's bag is a question about their design rights, not about this tool, and it is worth asking before you publish anything.
Keep reading
One bag becomes a pattern you can repeat.
Free while the demo runs. One photograph per panel.