My first sewing project

Here is my first sewing project from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing.

The raw materials.......

Et voila - the finished article


It's the Everything Tote. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, I'm using it as my combo handbag/diaper bag, and it's pretty roomy so it fits LOADS in. I used red ticking for the body and green ticking for the binding and handles, and the coolest camo print with hearts for the lining.

Of course I made a few amendments to the bag in the book. Firstly my tote is smaller - but still huge. The book calls for 1/2 yard of inner and 1/2 yard of outer fabric to make the tote. However this is way off the mark, I couldn't even cut the bag pattern piece from my half metre, never mind cutting the handles and binding on the bias! So I had to trundle off to Spotlight and get more fabric halfway through! In all I used 1.1 metres of ticking to make the bag and it's about 3 inches smallr in width.

I also used the suggestions from this post on AlewivesGirl to change the instructions to make more sense. I only folded the binding and the handles once, and I even left the straps open so that you can see the lining underneath and so that the straps are wider and stay on my shoulder better.

All in all, I'm pretty chuffed with my first sewing project (since I was at school) and I think the bag looks pretty special! (By the way I think I "forgot"to mention that my sewing afficianado mum was here for two weeks and oversaw the whole project!)

I already have my cogs whirring on making more bags!

x