Softgood Bag with rigid panels

Hey, I’m just getting into softgoods and I’m looking for a little help. I’m trying to design a bag that has some fairly rigid sections sewn into the bag. I’m looking at a 2mm sheet ply. (I would be open to a thin sheet plastic as well) Does anyone have any experience with doing things like this? Any good recommendations on design to keep it still fairly manufacturable? I’m trying to figure out the pattern making myself, and I’m sort of hitting my head against the wall a bit. Is there any way to sew through a thin sheet material like this (with an industrial machine), or do you always need to sew around it?

Lots of ways to accomplish it - you can sandwich thin PE/PP sheets between fabric layers to trap the panel or the sheet itself can be a panel stitched to surrounding fabric (yes, industry-level machined can sew through 1-2mm plastic panels. Panels can also be heat melted to fabrics in line formations, heat tacked in spots, riveted, etc.

Check out this toolbag. The body is 2 2mm exposed PE sheets overlapping on the sides. As you can see the EVA bottom is stitched right to the sheets, including the sides making it 4mm + EVAbase + lining.

Wow, thanks for the help guys. Its good to know its possible. Its good to see that snickers bag too, because that’s quite a bit more than what I’m hoping to accomplish (as far as rigidity sewn into the piece) I’m still very early in the project and haven’t begun to work with a specific factory yet. In your experience, are most factories fairly capable with this sort of thing, or do I need to specifically search out a manufacturing partner that has a lot of experience with it.

Relatively basic I would assume - just take your time with your tech pack…

Due to your limited experience, leave enough for interpretation (there always will be some) but also communicate whats important (foams, materials, construction). I dont think you can ever really send too much information to China as its all up for interpretation anyways - unless you have good QC and are a pattern maker…