I sewed up this tote bag yesterday, after thinking about it for a couple of weeks. I had the bib from an old pair of overalls, and thought it would make a cute and useful exterior pocket. All the materials are reused. I haven't put in the lining yet, because I'm still trying to decide whether the flip side is too plain or not. I have plenty of work shirt buttons that would make an attractive decoration on the dark denim rectangles, but it might be too texture-y to be practical.
In the process of thinking about the design, I spent a little time looking at handmade handbag Web sites. This is an example of an activity greatly enhanced by my DSL connection. With dial-up, it would have taken me days to winnow through the search results and find this many nifty sites with inspiring photos and patterns. This took about an hour. In the end, I sewed the bag I originally envisioned, but I got some really interesting ideas for more projects.
Free Resources
- Free Bags, Totes & Purse Sewing Projects
- Sew Your Own Purse by Debbie Colgrove
- Fun Handbag Created and Designed by Nina Kay
Commercial Resources--Patterns, Hardware, and Handmade Bags
- Ghee's Handbag Patterns, Handbag Hardware and Sewing Notions
- Henrietta's Handbag and Purse Patterns in Retro and Contemporary Designs
- Studio Kat Designs: patterns &photos.
- AMG Bags--bags for sale--good photos for ideas
- sewing.org has several styles with patterns and directions
- Holland Cox Handmade Classics really cute bags for sale, good pictures, and she blogs, too.
3 comments:
What a fantastic idea for a bag! I love it. I am so attached to my kids' overalls; now I see a way we can hang on to them once they've outgrown them as pants. :)
Thanks--I was just thinking that kid's overalls would make much cuter bags--the scale of an adult bib is just a little too big.
like the bag too - thanks for pointing it out to me
and I will check out the links as well
Post a Comment