Tote Bag City

More photos from the Tote Bag Spree I've been on the past month. At the end I have answers to the questions you asked last time.

This blue and white one went home with my mom:



















She is conservative and always wants everything in blue "so it will go with everything". But a bag should be fun and perky and the red really livens it up. Both fabrics are Kaffe Fasset. (Rhymes with "safe asset").














I gave this funky red Kaffe Fasset fabric and the red plastic handles to my sister for Christmas. Now I am finished with my Christmas gifts of '05.



















Per her request, I put tabs in the center. She is in charge of sewing on a magnetic closure, snap, or doing a vintage button and buttonhole.















And now in better lighting, this one was "commissioned" by my friend Carla.



















She picked out the fabrics. And did one heck of a job.



















Another one for me, for my "blue and purple" days. (Like, every day.) Again, Kaffe Fasset fabric, with vintage (feedsack?) green and white print lining.



















And a big one. I made this for the purpose of carrying stuff to swim lessons, but I have already used it to go to knitting guild, and was pleasantly suprised how much yarn and projects it will hold! I based the pattern for this one on an old canvas bag I have, similar to the LL Bean ones. It has a longer wider strap, and the bottom is black duckcloth, sewn right over the quilted fabric, so it is super-sturdy.














Here are the questions I received to my post last month, hope I didn't miss any.

Did you use a pre-quilted fabric or did you do all the layering and quilting yourself?

I did the layering and quilting myself. I used unwashed cotton on the top, cotton batting in the middle, and canvas or duckcloth on the bottom. Quilted it, washed it in hot water and dried it on high. That gives you the vintage, crinkly texture.

I can handle the tote part, just not the zipper.

I put a zipper in the first one I made--the red one from the March 25th post. Here is how I did it. I measured the inside opening and made a rectangle with a zipper down the center the size of the opening. That would be--two rectangular strips of fabric that I sandwiched, sewed around, and inside-outed so that all the edges were finished, sewed a zipper in between them, and planned it so that the finished measurement of all that would be the measurement of the opening. Then I hand sewed it in, about an inch below the top of the bag. And then, after a week of using the bag, I took the zipper back out! I just didn't like how it made the opening smaller and harder to fit things into, and generally made it more fiddley to use.

Did you use a pattern or just wing it?

I measured an old Target plastic tote that I really like. A 15" by 30" rectangle will give you a finished bag of approximately 10" by 12" with a gusset of 4".

A couple of friends are working on convincing me to open an Etsy shop. If the totebagfever continues into June when the kids are in summer preschool at the same time for a week, then I might get it together to sell a couple bags here on the ole blog.