The Sunshine Tote

Sunshine Tote

My sister asked for a tote bag to give as a part of a gift basket. Her husband's aunt is going through a tough time and she wants to make a care basket with some fruit and wine in it to give away so she asked me for a bag to put those things in.

I've been toying with tone-on-tone quilt squares lately so I thought I would take some of the extra quilt squares to make her bag.  Of all the color combinations I've been working with, I really liked the turquoise color scheme.  So I did some patchwork and turned it into a pretty large tote.  I planned on leaving it at that and calling it a basket but it just didn't look complete. So I added the handle with some buttons for an accent to turn the bag from a basket to a tote.

Even though I added some craft-weight interfacing to the bag, I wanted a little extra support so I covered a 4" x 10" piece of sturdy cardboard with some fabric and placed it in the bottom of the bag. That did the trick! I also left some room between the handle placement and the top of the bag to flip the opening up or down depending on how full the bag gets.

If my sister likes it, I think I will make more in different color schemes. I am calling it the Sunshine Tote since that is really its purpose. I might even make a tutorial out of it.  Hopefully it will bring the cheer that my sister wants to provide to her aunt.