There’s a million ways to make a shopping tote, but we’re partial to this one! The little zipper pouch keeps things tidy in your purse or car while making it convenient to carry these essential little bags around.
Using only 1 yd of fabric, this is an affordable project – excellent for gifting, too. The tote hardly takes any time at all to stitch together. The zipper pouch, a little more – but worth the effort. Do it assembly-line style and you can have 3 totes in a day (like these eye-catching ones in iHaus).
Here’s the link to the project download – the pattern pieces are included (pages 14-22).
oh these are awesome! Love it when projects take so little fabric yet have such great impact. 🙂
The zippered pouch to store it is a great idea!
Cindy
Maybe I’m reading it incorrectly and/or looking at the picture wrong, but on step 6a should it read “with WRONG sides together” or “with right sides OUT”? I may be mistaken, not having done a french seam before, but the directions don’t match up with what the diagram shows. All in all though, this is a cute tote and I look forward to making some!
Hi there. It looks right – the first step is to sew them together with the wrong sides together (right side out), then turn it inside out (right sides together), press and then stitch again. This “seals” in the raw edges and you don’t have to do any finishing.
Hi again. This *WAS* actually incorrect. It’s been corrected now. 🙂
Yes those instructions (6)are for French seams.
Great bag! But there is a mistake on page 7. For French seams you first sew with wrong sides together, then when you sew the second time the raw edges will be contained.
Corrected! Thanks.
Love this! Thank you for posting this tutorial!!
Thanks for sharing, I´m sure going to make some of these as gifts. Love them.
This is awesome.
what type fabric is this or can be made out of.great tutorial thanks.
This is just typical quilter’s cotton. We don’t recommend canvases or anything heavier especially if you plan to tuck it into the zip pouch.
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Do you join the zipper tabs to the west on the pouch?
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Thank you so much !
Excellent pouch tutorial you shared on this blog. It is a very supportive and useful post. I would like to visit the post once more of its valuable content. Thanks for sharing this blog.
Thanks for this great tutorial. I have wanting to replace two of my totes that are really old so now I don’t have an excuse not to make one or three.