Monday, July 24, 2006

Bib Overalls Pocket On a Patchwork Totebag

Bib Overall Pocket on patchwork tote bag

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

Commercial Resources--Patterns, Hardware, and Handmade Bags

tote bag side tote bag back

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

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. :)

Rebecca Clayton said...

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.

sharonb said...

like the bag too - thanks for pointing it out to me
and I will check out the links as well