A New Season Needs a New Bag.

This post is from Autumn.  If you haven't yet made this tote, you should get sewing for fall.  I have one and I too load it up with groceries at the store and take it out on the town for errands.  I think the size of this bag is just wonderful, and it is wonderful to have Autumn's notes on the project.  She really makes the confusing handle instructions much simpler.

The Everything Tote is another great pattern from Weekend Sewing.  I love the finished product and carried my new tote proudly out for errands today.   It is big enough that my youngest child could fit in it and it was able to hold most of my purchases from Target, excluding the cat food.   I love the fabric (Ikea) and I picked up some pink canvas at Bolt for the bag lining to add touch more color.

Unfortunately this pattern is not without a few mistakes and questions.   First, it says ½ a yard for the fabric and ½ a yard for the lining.   The errata page says 1 yard for each, but when I started the sample for Bolt I quickly realized that 1 yard wasn’t going to be enough.  You must have 1 ¼-1 ½ a yard in order to cut out all the pieces and fit the handles on the bias as the pattern says.  

I did a few things different with my new bag and I’m so very pleased.  First, when I cut out my handles and binding for my bag I didn’t cut them out on the bias.  In my opinion cutting them out on the bias gives me no advantage with this pattern.  I wouldn’t do this with all patterns, but this time it worked.  This also saves fabric, making the yardage more like 1 ¼ of a yard rather than 1 ½ of a yard. 

The next thing I did a little different was the gathering.  I gathered a lot more than the pattern says.  Instead of gathering to 12 inches between points I gathered to 7 inches.  I love the dramatic look of the deeper gathers on my new bag.  Next time I think I’m going to add box pleats instead for a different look.  I won’t sew pockets inside the bag when I do the box pleats, so the pocket doesn’t get folded in on itself.

The handles and the binding I worked a little different than the pattern as well.  Instead of treating the handles and the binding as bias tape as the pattern says, I simply folded the pieces in half over the edge and topstitched them in place.  

Also, instead of hand stitching the handle opening closed I sewed the ends of the handles with right sides together and pinned the seam of the handles to the side seam of the bag, folded the handle over the edge, and topstitched the handles onto the bag.  

This just seemed more logical to me and I do love to eliminate hand stitching whenever possible.  I also did some extra topstitching on the binding for a little extra detail.

 I love my new bag and plan on using it regularly.  If you would like to see an Everything Tote in person, go to Bolt.  You can also take my class that starts on September 22^nd at Bolt.