I needed another project - and this free tote pattern and tutorial found on the Sew Sweetness site was ideal. I wanted the tote as a replacement for my tatty handbag, but it needed to be large enough to carry my essentials ie. purse, keys, folding shopping bag, small umbrella and my trusty 10" android tablet.
I wanted to practice using my new sewing machine and try another technique - so chose to do some free motion embroidery.
Because of Covid and self isolating I had to rely on what I could find in my stash of materials and haberdashery. I pulled out some beige linen and a bit of black net and then drew freehand a simple design. I added some stitch and tear stabiliser on the back and set to work. I had a bit of black wool that was couched to form the stems and used my Derwent Inktense pencils to draw the leaves. By wetting them and then steaming them the colour should now be fixed into the fabric. I enjoyed doing the free motion around the leaves, stems and flower heads. Setting the machine to do free motion was very easy - just had to press the appropriate button on the menu, select which foot I was going to use and the machine then dropped the feed dogs and I was ready to go. I chose to do some individual satin stitch spots for some of the flowers, and some of the decorative stitches that the machine offers.
It took four days on and off as I didn't want to rush and make any mistakes. It was easy following the wonderfully detailed step by step video that is provided by Sew Sweetness as I could pause the video on the laptop that I keep by the side of my machine . I used a dark purple floral cotton for the lining but my zips for the inside pockets didn't match (they were navy) as I had to use what I had to hand. I also made a couple of changes to the pattern. I added on one inside side lining panel a pouch pocket for my phone, and I had to adapt the size of the internal zip closure to account for the fact I was using a standard dress zip and not the wider handbag zip. This was a complicated bag made very easy by the clear instructions. I used foam car headliner for the support, and I was dreading sewing through all the thicknesses - but my new Pfaff made light work of it - my old Brother machine would not have coped at all. I notice that the machine in the video is a Juki ( I have one of those so would have used it if my Pfaff had struggled) Most of the sewing used either 1/4 " or 1/8" seams and the foot that came with my machine worked a treat as it is specific for those sizes.
The real fun started when it came to turn the bag right side out through one of the pockets in the lining. The handles are quite narrow, and so the thickness of the foam meant that this was the trickiest part. Fortunately I have a couple of haemostats and by using these the handles were not too difficult to turn through. Again, the instructions on the video were very helpful.
Top stitching through all the layers I took slowly and I also spent a long time pressing to get a good finish.
So am I pleased with the finished bag? -Yes I am. Would I make another - I doubt it!! Ha ha. But there is larger size included with the free pdf pattern so perhaps I might at some time in the future if only to showcase what else I can create using my new Pfaff Creative Icon.