Summer Beach Bags

Today I’m excited to be sharing a really fun project that I did with this awesome home dec fabric as part of Riley Blake’s Home Dec Blog Tour.  I used a combination of fabrics including Quatrefoil, Wave, and Lobster in reds to make a couple summer beach bags perfect for getting outside this season!

I love using home dec fabric for bag projects because it gives more support to the bag structure and it’s also more durable for daily on-the-go.  The first bag is a large tote bag – the design itself is fairly simple.  I made two large rectangles in Wave for the exterior and two large rectangles in Quatrefoil for the interior lining.  For some added stye and function, I layered two additional rectangles in smaller heights over one of the exterior panels.  These make nice large outer pockets that snap closed.  Finish the top edge with a double-fold hem and the snaps before sewing the bag together and then just baste at the sides and bottom to the main exterior panel.  Add embroidery or appliqué to the smallest pocket panel before assembly.  I love the bright blue lobster on there!!

The lobster and the anchor embroidery designs were a quick download off of Etsy.  I’m new to machine embroidery and I am LOVING it!!  There are so many options out there, but I’ve found Etsy to be the quickest way to search for and download a design, copy it over to my jump drive and plug it into my machine.  The lobster took a while to embroider, but it was well worth it!  A 5×7 size design works best on these bags so that it really shows up!

I used interfacing on the main panels of each bag.  The larger tote bag could use a heavier interfacing and I would like to interface all the panels in the future – I didn’t have the right thing on hand.  For smaller bags, a lighter interfacing would be just fine because the home dec fabric has a lot of structure to it.  I used leather straps on the large beach bag and I really like the finished look – it just looks a little higher end than fabric straps, don’t you think?  A walking foot and some upholstery piping helped the leather straps come together without too much trouble.

This little beach backpack is just the right size for kiddos to toss a book, swimsuit, and some water into for a trip to the pool or lake.  I am dying over how cute it turned out with the nautical theme.  I used wide grosgrain ribbon for the straps and a rope trim for the drawstring.

Click here for the FULL STEP-BY-STEP BACKPACK TUTORIAL!!

You can find all the Riley Blake Home Dec fabrics on their site, here.  I can’t wait to see all of the other cool projects that people are sewing with Home Dec fabric this summer!  You can follow along on the tour as well!