Thinking of making a reusable bag for a niece’s birthday and came across this. Trying to find the correct instructions on how to fold and sew the origami or bento bag, as it is named, was boggling. Why? Too many photos, too many posts, too many instructions.

Finally had to expand the photo instructions from Journal Origami Alena with some trial & error origami folding before it clicked.

What you need is a length of material, it really depends on the size of the bag that you would like to have. I have used a scarf bought from a $2 shop for this purpose.

What I used:

• Scarf or length of fabric measuring : 42″ x 14″ Length x width
  (Tip: width is 1/3 of the length of the fabric, so if you want a quarter yard (9″), the length of the fabric should be 9″x 3 = 27″)
• length of fabric for the handle – 8″x 4″ (optional)
• Thread to match (or not)

Hopefully, the video I have made makes it easier to understand.

The end result. You can also opt not to add the handle and just know the two ends together.