Tote Bag with Wooden Handles

Today I wanted to make something fairly easy--you know, straight lines, simple stitches--though I daresay I'll overcomplicate it. Oh well. ("That's your problem. You always want everything to be clever." - Moriarty)

I'm going to make a tote that I can carry all my sheet music in (I play violin and piano) + use as a purse if I want to. I rifled through our tote collection the other day and found them totally inadequate for my purposes. They are all mesh bags, which end up rounding the corners of papers and folders.

I want the bag to be pretty large (I like big bags and I cannot lie), have boxed corners, a lining, some pockets. I think it'll be open top but I might fiddle around with a button and loop closure.

Now to hunt down some fabric. I'm in a bit of a quandary because I can't decide whether I want to do something with good ol' quilting squares or do a solid piece fabric. (I have been daydreaming about a bespectacled cream-colored mouse reading a book . . . no idea why.)

Ooh, that Hawaiian-ish one looks great with the color of those handles. (I know, I know, it's winter . . .) Also, I have black lining which will work great with that.

First I'll lay the handles down on the sheaf of fabric, which is folded in half, to see how wide I want the bag. (I'm not going to be using a measuring tape, partially because I can't find it.)

Chaos, we meet again. *dramatic music*

If you're wondering why on earth my room is such a disaster it's because we're in the middle of a renovation, meaning everything from one room has been compressed into another, dispersed in piles, and crammed into boxes. We also have a giant storage container in our front drive. It's full too.

Now that I know basically how big I want the bag I'll cut out (with the fabric folded) a large square. Now I have two of the outside fabric. I'll do two squares of the same size in the lining fabric and two of the batting. (Batting can be omitted.)

With right sides together I'll sew my fabric on three sides, same with the lining. Now I have either a great bag for kidnapping people or a fabulous hat. Ta-da!



Now to box the corners. To anyone who doesn't know how, you basically set the bag on its end seam and take the adjacent seam and press it down directly onto the end seam to form a triangle. (Oh, I hope that explanation translates.)



Then, depending on how wide you want your boxed corners, you sew straight across, making a triangle at the corner of the bag. Cut off the triangle.

Do that to both sides and you've got it. Okay, I boxed the corners of my fabric and my lining. (I later went back and sewed just my batting in the same way--the three sides, then boxing the corners. There is probably a better method for doing the batting but I didn't bother to Google it.)

Now I'll fit all my layers together exactly as I want them to look on the finished product. No seams showing, just the raw edges at the top. Now (and again, probably a better method out there) I'll fold over the raw edges, lining inward and fabric over batting inward, and tuck the handles down in there. (Here came my downfall . . . darn you, measuring tape)

I hand sewed the handles on through that big slit in the wood and use a line of hot glue to hold down the very edges.



Same thing with other handle. I also hand sewed the remainder of the upper edge of the bag. Then I hopped back up to the sewing machine and wrestled with sewing a nice solid line just beneath the handles all the way around the bag.



That was hard. I guarantee there's a better way to do that, if nothing else.

All right, now with all bottom corners matched and aligned properly, I hand tacked in each corner to ensure the layers won't pull apart.

Ta-da! The finished bag!



Now about the downfall. The handles, due to "offness" in my eyeball measurements, are not centered. But hey, the bag still carries stuff so I'd say it's a pretty good day.

Another mistake is that the lining fabric bunched a bit when I was in the deathmatch with the sewing machine, leaving a big fold where it shouldn't be. To cover that up (rather than pulling out the dreaded seam ripper), I'm going to crochet black trim for the inside and light green for the outside with the yarn in the picture.

Tips and suggestions? Project you want to see me fiddle with? (Or should I say "Any projects with which you want to see me fiddle?" Cool your jets, Charles Dickens.)  Comment below!

Make a bag of your own (show me pictures!) or hop over to my Etsy shop to buy one.

NOTE: I bought the handles at JoAnn's.

And yes. I am wearing pajamas.