Paisley Tote Bag project
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here! Well, moving across the country can do that to you. I have a lot of potential posts saved up, and I hope I will be able to get to them soon.
Here’s a quick little project I just finished up last night: a simple paisley tote bag. What’s cool about this one? I designed the fabric myself!
I’ve designed fabric patterns for Spoonflower off and on for a while, but despite that, I’ve never actually made anything out of the fabric I designed. I only have swatches of each design on hand. I really wanted to try to make something, but I wanted something quick and easy.
A while back, Spoonflower integrated with Sprout, a company that will sell you fabric custom printed with pattern pieces. You can buy simple patterns like this tote bag, or more complicated dresses, jackets, and so on. I decided to try Sprout with a simple tote bag, using one of my fabric designs.
Looking through my designs, I chose my newest one, Watercolor Pink Paisley. At Sprout, I chose the Everyday Tote pattern, and clicked the “Create Your Own” button. To select a design, click the turquoise button with the plus and choose the design you like. You don’t have to create your own design if you don’t want to; you can search throughout the entire Spoonflower marketplace, or the designs you’ve marked as favorites, or designers you follow.
You can choose multiple designs if you like. Once you’ve chosen your designs, you can also go back to the pattern page and select solid colors if necessary. I did this for mine.
Once you have the pattern customized the way you like it, just order. When the order arrives, it will be a piece of fabric (one yard, in this case) with the pattern pieces printed on it. The instructions are in PDF form, and you download those from your account on Sprout.
Then just sew it all together. The tote bag is a very easy project so I finished it quickly. Dresses and pants will probably take longer! (If you hate to sew, some of the patterns at Sprout have “White Glove Service,” in which they will sew them for you.)
I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s fun to have a 3-dimensional, useful object with fabric featuring a design I painted in my sketch book a few weeks ago!
If you like this design, you can get your own copy of this paisley tote bag here.
