Another Handy Tote

Labor Day is over so summer is over, right? No? It’s over 90 degrees here on the Nature Coast in Florida. And there are a few tropical storms lurking off the coast of Africa. Yet I have hope that some cool breezes will find us soon.

And just to speed it along, I thought I’d make another Handy Tote in Autumn colors to honor the season. And also testing my tutorial one more time! Here is the tutorial if you would like to try it: Handy Tote Tutorial

I am slowly moving all of my fabric and sewing tools from the second floor to the first. Well, I’m not. Terry is doing the work. He brings it to me. I sort it, toss it, or store it. Last week he brought a giant bag of home decorator fabric to the new sewing room (former dining room). Most of it is from Premier Prints that I purchased through Fabric.com. When I went though it all, I remembered what I used each one for originally. This orange print fabric was used for making guest bags for Lauri and Alan’s wedding way back on October 13, 2012. The Al-La-Palooza!

I followed the Handy Tote Tutorial and made a few changes to this bag. That’s the fun part of handmade. No rules.

I only had enough of the orange fabric with dots to do one side of the bag. For the other side of the bag, I put two different fabrics together with French Seams so there were all nice clean seams.

I didn’t have enough of the happy print to make the size exterior pocket that I call for in the tutorial. I just made it a bit smaller and my iPad still fits. Since it is stitched on the opposite side of the interior pocket I had to be careful where I did the placement.