Chronicle Books wrote this fun post about tote bags and included the instructions for my Market Tote from 1, 2, 3 Sew, like this one that I made last week. Made with burlap and fully lined, this tote is the first of three in the tote bag chapter and is the most simple to make, perfect for a beginner or anyone who wants a grown-up tote bag.
It’s a great bag for the summer, and even though my latest version is in linen and cotton, it’s proven to be a perfect pool carry-all, holding 2-3 towels and our gear. You could also use a vinyl-coated cotton liner and outer bottom for wet swimsuits. I need to go ahead and invest in a teflon presser foot for working with slippery fabrics, but now I simply use a strip of painter’s tape on the edge of the fabric and then remove it after I’m done stitching.
I’m still waiting for the days when I can just take a magazine to the pool and relax in the shade while the kids swim on their own, but we’re not quite there yet. Although when my daughter practiced her “dead man float” at the pool last week, the lifeguard did jump in after her, which gave me some reassurance. But oops. She’s not allowed to do that anymore.
Note: Included with the book for some of the projects are full-scale paper patterns to make your life easier. But since this tote pattern is larger than the printable page, they were having some problems with the template file on the Chronicle blog, so I sent over a diagram of the pattern (which is posted there now), but then I figured out an easier way! Here’s a tiled version, so you just print out these six pages and put them together like a puzzle. Everyone loves a puzzle, right? Here’s your hint: it will look like the image above when done.
Please let me know if you have any questions! Happy Sewing!
