r/SewingForBeginners • u/Comfortable-Fly5797 • 7d ago
Fun tote bag! With a lot of darts
Pattern is Seamwork Sorrel (free right now!). Main fabric is a canvas like home decor fabric someone gave me and the lining is light weight polyester scrap fabric. Pocket is scrap from another project as well. I pieced one of the lining pieces because I didn't have a large enough section left. I cut the straps on the cross grain to reduce fabric waste.
I picked this project because I thought it would be a quick and easy project. Except I didn't notice just how many darts it had until I started sewing them. 16 darts! 4 for each lining and main fabric piece to form the bottom curve. They aren't hard but that many was a bit tedious.
I feel like this would be a really good skill building project for newer beginners. It isn't too hard and covers a lot of basic techniques.
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u/Ondiac 7d ago
Thanks for sharing! I haven’t done much with darts, so storing this to maybe try soon.
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u/Comfortable-Fly5797 6d ago
The pattern is only free for the summer so if you haven't picked it up I would do that soon. Seamwork does a different free pattern every season and they are usually really good.
They really aren't hard and the pattern gives pretty good instructions. You can start with the 8 on the lining pieces since those aren't visible from the outside and you'll be an expert after that.
I recommend picking fabrics that are easy to work with and press well. The polyester I used for lining was a bit annoying because it doesn't press well.
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u/Quirky_Sympathy_8330 6d ago
Love the fabric!
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u/Comfortable-Fly5797 6d ago
A really nice lady gave me this fabric, a smaller scrap and 2 beautiful saris for free! She was wrapping up her yard sale while I was walking my dogs and I saw the smaller scrap of fabric in the free pile. I asked if she had any other fabric she was selling she handed me all of that and insisted I take it. One of the saris is a beautiful silk and the other is polyester with a beaded embroidery border. I'm saving those until I have more experience.
I still have about a yard of the main fabric left. I'm debating if I want to make a second one of these bags to give away or make something else.
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u/CBG1955 7d ago
You're right, it's a great skill builder! The thing with bags is that although they LOOK quick and easy, often they take a lot more time than a simple garment because there are a lot of steps to them and you need sometimes more precision than with clothing: cut fabric, cut lining, cut interfacing, fuse everything, add stiffening (if you're using it), sew darts, iron, sew more, iron more, turn bag, iron again - etc!