How to sew a patchwork tote bag

Hey y’all and welcome to Sewspire! 

Today I am here to show you how to sew this fabulous patchwork tote. I love making the patchwork bags because each one is a unique piece of art. This particular tote is sized perfectly to hold file folders and would make a great pattern file or work in progress tote. You could easily repurpose it into a purse or lunch tote as well.

For this project you will need to cut out the following pieces of cotton quilt weight fabric:

(4) 10″ x 4″

(10) 10″ x 2″

(4) 10″ x 3″

(1) 6″ x 4″

(2) 6″ x 3″

(3) 6″ x 2″

(2) 12″ x 3″

(3) 12″ x 2″

(1) 12″ x 4″

(2) 6″ x 16″

Plus the interior panels which will be cut to the exact measurements of your finished exterior patchwork panels. I did not include those measurements because your panels may very well be a different measurement than mine depending upon your seam allowances. I used a 3/8″ seam allowance. You will also need to cut like size pieces of heavy weight Pellon fusible fleece/flannel for the exterior body panels and two 3″ x 16″ pieces of Pellon for the handles.

The pattern layout for the front, rear, base and side panels is: 2″, 4″, 3″, 2″, 3″, 2″.

The finished bag measures approximately 11″ across the base, 8″ tall and 5″ deep.

I hope you enjoy the video! If you’d like to enter to win this tote, you can do that here. I will be back in two weeks with another inspired sewing project…until then, please know the creative genius in me salutes the creative genius in you!

XO,

Andrea

P.S. Congratulations to Amy McNeil the winner of last week’s divided caddy!