Toting up your ABCs

My daughter is a third year student teacher and is about to embark on a six week long teaching practice at a local school. There are going to be lots of bits and bobs she'll be hauling between home and school on a daily basis, as well as books and other teachery stuff that junior schools use.

She needed a bag large enough, and strong enough, to carry everything.

I'll be honest with you -- I've been looking for an excuse to try out a fully quilted and lined tote bag idea that's been taking up space inside my brain lately, and wouldn't this just be the absolute perfect opportunity to test it out? 

Enter Supermom getting crafty with some batting, fabric and a rotary cutter.

I used shwe shwe for both the inside and outside of the blue bag. It is 100% cotton, and there are loads of different patterns and colours from which to choose.

My notoriously pattern-averse, colour-minimalist daughter made it very difficult for me to choose only two designs, because I could easily have walked out of the shop with a bunch of different shwe shwe designs.

I used iron-on batting. The stuff is easy to use and brings a nice level of stability and extra strength to the fabric. I cut a piece of the front fabric to fit (it started off being about 18 inches x 36 inches) and quickly realized that I was going to have to hand baste the top to the batting because the pins were puckering the fabric.

That's time I'm never going to get back, but I'm really pleased I made the effort and did it. Quilting was a whole lot easier afterwards, and I simply followed the lines in the shwe shwe pattern. I was so impressed with my straight sewing, I was almost sorry to have used matching thread because I wanted to show it off. Of course, if I'd used a contrasting thread, those lines of sewing would have come out as wavy as the Atlantic ocean.

The side seams were French seamed so they are very neat and (hopefully) able to withstand extreme use.

I used 19mm twill tape for the handles and made sure those were secured extremely well before binding off the top of the bag.

I made boxed corners for the first time and am so pleased at the way they turned out. I was initially going to French seam them as well but my sewing machine was starting to groan at the thickness of the layers it was being asked to sew through, that I decided to skip them.

My sister has put in an order for a bag as well so watch this space for hers.