Make your own Tote Bag

Thing you need:

Iron

Ironing board

Sewing machine

Thread

3x - 50x52 cm sheets of Cotton Fabric

Paper

Plastic Wrap

Baking Paper

Tote bags are useful in day to day life. They carry the essentials, used to carry groceries, presents, books pretty much whatever you can fit. Tote bags are made to promote bands, galleries, local culture, community projects the list can keep going. In saying how useful a tote bag is, we can simply display a social message, to create an intervention into a public space. Taking the tote bag from a useful essential, fashion accessories away from mainstream branding to creating conversations, sparking ideas from the people around us.

They are easy to make – we have create a step by step guide for you below:

1. Start with cotton material, 50x52 cm, you will need three sheets of fabric. You can either get the fabric cut from the roll or buy pre-cuts Iron all fabric after having cutting, and leave your iron on for the next step.

2. We will start with making the straps through some folds, have your straps horizontal. With one strap please fold in half long ways. Then use the iron to create a permanent. Unfold. Flatten out with your hand. Then you are going to bring the top right corner and top left corner to the middle crease and fold that down. Use the iron to create a permanent crease. Then bring the bottom right corner and bottom left corner into the middle crease and iron that down like the top. Should look like a book cover now. So now fold the straps in half, crease are next to one another and the raw edge is on the first fold. Iron that down so everything is firm. You can turn off your iron and turn on your sewing machine. You're going to put it on a straight stitch setting. Stitching the two ends and the one longest side where the two folds meet. Do the same for the other strap.

4. So I am putting the straps one of the 50cm side. To place the straps I measured the middle, which is 10cm, and then 5cm from middle to left and right I placed a strap. I choose to pin 4cm at each end of the strap, please pin so you do not lose your placement. Head to your sewing machine.

5. Same stitch setting straight. We are going to sew a bow and then a X through it. I started by sewing a rectangle, then one diagonal line across, then sewed over one of the short edges of the rectangle, and then the last diagonal to make the X. This configuration will make sure the straps are secure to the bag. Do this for the other side of the tote bag, on the other piece.

6. Next thing to do is to match up your sides corner to corner, strap to strap, with the pattern side facing one another. Pin around the sides except the side with the straps as we are not sewing that one. I sewed 2 cm from the edge.

7. Next step is to make your bag a statement. For this I went on Word, and typed FIGHT NOT FREEZE in capitals highlighted black and made the font white. Printed on normal printing A4 paper, and then cut out the white around the words and left with black, please cut at your own desire. Get your cling wrap and pull out double the width of your cut out. Start to wrap your paper, make sure there is no excess on the sides, fold and make cuts to have clean edges. With the excess place at the back, this will help with your statement adhering to the fabric.

8. Place where you like. Make sure the iron is on a dry setting and the highest heat. Place baking paper on the top and iron your statement. Don’t worry about the paper burning make sure after 1 or 2 minutes check to see if it has melted on, may need another minute or two under the heat, then you should have your own TOTE BAG!