Sewing - a large tote bag in blue and yellow blend fabric - Gramma Africa

I started the weekend of sewing with this project!!  I am using cotton poly blend which we received last year in our fabric sale donations.  We bagged these scraps for our sale last year and I am storing them at home for this year's sale.  I opened a bag of each colour  - blue and yellow - and started creating a large piece of fabric using the long scraps to their best advantage and created the main fabric for this bag.  I had in my stash a band of embroidered flowers which was the inspiration for this bag.  I cut them apart and added white cotton to the back of each one to give them opacity.  I added blue sashing all the way around to make the width of my bag (16").  I did have to add several more strips to my fabric to make it the same width.  I cut off a strip of about 4" and stitched my floral piece in between the two.  I cut my fabric to about 19"  (17" plus 2" for the bottom) to create the front.  I added wide strips to which I had stitched pockets on each end for my sides.  I cut another piece to 19" to make the back piece and stitched it to each side to make a cylinder.  I cut two strips of blue for the strap (49") and stitched them together to make the handle.  I trimmed a 3" or so piece for the inside of the bag to which I stitched my lining pieces.  I created a pocket with a zipper and a little loop and stitched it to my lining piece before I added the blue strip.  Nice neat finish for inside.  I pinned the strap ends in place and tucked them about 3.5" deep on each side and basted them in place along with another loop on the top edge.  I assembled the bag by sewing the top seam which joined the outer bag and the lining and secured the handles in place.   I stitched the boxed corners on the bag and the lining. I turned it inside out through an opening I left in the lining.  I did some topstitching on the top edge, secured my straps with a bit more stitching and did the same to the boxed corners to the bottom.

I added a length of twill tape (12")  on the front of the handle which allows the handle to be adjusted to a shorter length for carrying on your arm instead of over your shoulder.  To adjust, you simply untie the bow, loop the handle to the length you want and retie the twill tape really tight over the looped area!!

I stitched up the opening in the lining and the bag was done!!  Therese