Tote Bag

Hello all!  I have been keeping busy here with our ducklings and planting flowers around the house now that the weather is finally warming up. I found a little time a couple of weeks ago to sew up a tote bag that I could use to carry larger items than I would normally put in my purse.  I found this cute Tied-Handle Tote Bag pattern on Craftsy from My 3 Monsters blog and thought I'd give it a try. 

I loved the gathered portion of the bag because it reminded me of all the cute dresses I have made over the years.  I chose to use these pretty prints from Jennifer Paganelli's Caravelle Arcade collection.  They are great spring colors!  If you are wanting to purchase some I have them for sale in my Etsy shop located here.  The best part is that I have them on SALE!  Grab them while you can because they won't last long.

Back to the bag pattern now.  It was easy to sew.  The directions were easy enough to understand and I may have gotten caught up with a step or two but figured them out eventually.  The biggest issue I came across was within the written pattern- I didn't see that it did not include a seam allowance.  On the pattern pieces it states that there is no seam allowance but I overlooked it as having it.  So with this mistake it did mess me up a bit with the curved edges of the handles.  I trimmed things down to work for me.  The actual tote itself is so large that the missing allowances went totally unnoticed.  Keep in mind for sizing that I am very, very short (under 5 ft!) so the bag will look larger on me than it will on a 5'9" person. 

The bag has held all sorts of things the past two weeks.  I used it to carry my camera (very carefully), umbrella, books, cans of flavored water, snacks, and my wallet.  I think if I make another tote that I will make some sort of small closure for it just to help keep things in place a little.  Tell me what you think and leave a comment below!