Front Zipper Pocket Tote

Recently when I needed one more handmade gift, I went with the Front Zipper Pocket Tote in Sotak Handmade's book, That Handmade Touch. The recipient loves and uses all the little handmade items I've made her over the years, so it's kind of hard to remember what I've made - or not. Figuring a tote is always handy, I went rummaging through my stash to see what I had to work with.

For the main exterior, I had plenty of the suggested Essex linen in black, which in my humble opinion, goes with just about anything. For the exterior pockets, I had just enough Triangles in Red from Kobayashi. It's a Linen Cotton Canvas, a little heavier than suggested but worked perfectly. What you can't see is a gold zipper under the top flap in the photo above. In the photo below of the tote back, you can see there's a bound slip pocket. And just for the record, after I took these photos, I thought to press the side and bottom corners, which made the bag a lot less slouchy-looking.

The lining was also canvas, though unfortunately unidentified. It's cheery though, and gave the bag some nice structure. The leather handles - a feature that I knew the recipient would love - I actually had on hand from Anna/noodlehead's shop. When I purchased the strap for the recent Hillside Tote, I bought a spare. How serendipitous was that? And the final details - a magnetic snap and some rivets - finished the bag off nicely. It measured 12" wide x 14" tall x 4" deep, which is a really useful medium size. And happily, my friend loved the tote, just as I'd hoped. And with that, I THINK I'm caught up on sharing the small makes of the last few weeks. AND I started a new quilt this week!!

New York Style

A couple of months ago, son-in-law traveled on business to New York City. From his hotel, he had a great view of the Empire State Building, was within a stone's throw of Time Square, and through circumstances unexplained, made his way to the Garment District. Specifically, he stopped in at Elegant Fabrics, and I was the fortunate recipient of some awesome fabric (the brown dot in the photo).

Because the fabric was home decor weight, I thought a bag of some sort was in order. And I just so happened to have several yards of brown home dec Heath in Chocolate. Perfect for the lining.

So I went hunting and decided on the "For Pleat's Sake" Tote from U-Handbag. So handy, in addition to the free pattern, I was able to order the handles there too. No contrasting colors were available, so I went with the Dark Chocolate (notice a theme here?). To add just a bit of interest, I chose to do all the top-stitching on the bag with a fun Aurifil 40wt, #2150 (Golden Poppy). For the leather handles, I used tapestry thread, and again, there weren't many color choices at my store. Good thing I like brown.

Speaking of, those pleats are kind of a major focus of this bag, both inside and out. I made one little change - where the pattern had all the pleats on each panel going in one direction, I made 3 on each side face the center. And really, they were pretty darn easy as long as I marked and pinned well. My only confusion was the basic pleat measurement - note that each should be 3/4" deep.

I should mention that with the fabrics I used, I omitted the suggested interfacing, but did use fleece (Pellon's TP971F Fusible Thermolam Plus) on the lining. This gave the bag plenty of structure for my tastes, and with its boxed bottom, it stands nicely.

I'm really pleased with how the bag turned out. I'm quite fond of those dots, and the bag itself was a pleasure to make. Just for the record, I spent about 3 hours sewing the bag, and another hour adding the handles. So not bad for a fun new look.

This project was on my Finish-A-Long Q4 list! Linking up with Purse Palooza and Finish It Up Friday.