Bag Making

Some more sewing has been happening. I needed a gift for a lovely friend so I decided to use a small stitching that I had just finished and incorporated it into a bag loosely based on the tote bag from the Bend the Rules sewing book. It is larger than the bag in the book and I lengthened the longer strap quite a bit. The stitching was part of a kit purchased at the Craft Fair earlier in the year. It is called Stitched with Love and is by Calico Farm Designs.

I was very pleased with the end result and it was one of those gifts that was so hard to give away. I would have loved to keep it for myself but know that it will be well used by the recipient. The bag is big enough to fit a medium sized lunch box or book and a drink bottle. I added a small zipper pouch for keeping small things in and looped that around the strap. For the zippered pouch I used my favourite tutorial by Sew Sally. I really like her construction technique and the way the zipper is on one side of the pouch. The last part of the gift was a small drawstring pouch for holding stuff. For this I used my bookmarked tutorial from happythings.

I modified the base of the bag by making a feature of the boxed corners. This idea came from my copy of the Zakka Sewing book that I was lucky enough to win earlier in the year. I folded the corners to the outside after sewing across them and added a wooden button as decoration.

I seem to have found a few tutorials that I go back to again and again. Do you have tutorials like that - bookmarked to get back to easily or used so often they become just part of your sewing repertoire?