I feel the need for a few finishes before I embark on anything else, I seem to have a few things that I’ve done the stitching for and not made it into anything or finished it off. Today I decided to tackle my embroidered tote bag.

This is a bag I bought at the Harrogate show last November from Sew Enchanting. The design was pre-printed onto a calico bag, I just had to embroider it how ever I liked. I chose pretty colourful threads and this was the bag last time I posted about it…

I could have just left it as it was, but I felt with all the work that had gone into it it deserved to be lined. I had a rummage through my stash and found a batik whose colours matched perfectly, all blues, turquoise, green, purple and pink. I washed both the bag and the batik first as I thought it would be just my luck for the calico to shrink significantly.

I made new straps first, just 1″ wide as that was what the original straps were. I top-stitched them either side to keep them neat and pinned them in place.

I cheated a little on the actual lining…rather than accurately measure and then cut out the lining, I stitched the top seam1″ below the top of the bag, then worked out where the side seam should be, cut and stitched that. I then top-stitched the mock-binding and did the reinforcement cross on the ends of the straps.

I then pinned where the base should be, cut and stitched there too. I left a hole in the middle of the lining bottom so I could turn or ‘birth’ the bag. I could then stitch the hole closed and my bag was essentially finished. As a final touch I added the ‘Handmade’ wooden tag.

I’m really pleased with how it’s come out, lining it has made it feel much more substantial and didn’t really take long once I knuckled down to it.