Diy: The Reversible Tote Bag

The tote bag is an essential accessory for everyday life: it’s used to take your lunch to work/school, to carry groceries, or your gym clothes to work! The tote bag can come with designs or promote a cause that you find worthy of sharing with the world. Although tote bags are pretty easy to make if you are graphic artist you might prefer to create a design and have it printed on tote bags like these. If you have a true DIY spirit, below is a tutorial to make your very own!

Materials:

Printed fabric of your choice, use your imagination, a tote bag must be fun! :)
Plain fabric
Matching thread and a needle
Sewing Scissors
Pins
Ruler and pencil
Tailor’s chalk if your fabric is dark
Sewing machine
Iron

How to instructions :

1. Cut two rectangles of 36x42cm in the printed fabric and other two rectangles of the exact same dimensions in the plain fabric. Also, cut two strips of 9×60 cm in the plain fabric for the handles.

2. Arrange the rectangles of printed fabric (36x42cm) “face-to-face” and pin them together all the way round. Sew three sides and leaves one open (the shortest side). Do the same with the rectangles of plain fabric.

3. The handles: fold a strip of fabric 9x60cm face-to-face along the entire length to obtain a strip of 4.5x60cm. Iron to mark the fold. Prick so that it does not move and poke at 0.5cm from the edge. Return the strip: You get a kind of roll. Iron to flatten it then sew each side closest to the edge.

4. In order to give some volume to the bag, we will sew in angle the bottom corners. To do this, fold the bottom of the printed fabric bag to match the seams. With a ruler, measure 3.5cm from the tip and draw a line perpendicular to the reference seam [1]. Pin so that the fabric does not move and sew it [2]. Trim the excess fabric at 0.5cm of the seam [3]. Repeat the process for the other angle. We obtain a larger bag base with a nice volume [4]. Do the same for plain fabric bag.

5. Turn the plain fabric bag on the face and insert it inside the printed fabric bag remained upside. Tissues are face-to-face on the front side.

6. Insert a loop between the plain fabric bag and the printed fabric bag by positioning the rounded inwards and leaving more than 3 cm outward. Attach the edge of the handle at 8 cm from the side of the bag with pins. Turn your work and do the same with the other side with the second handle, taking care to properly aligning the bases of the handles so that they are facing each other.

7. Prick the two layers of fabric (plain and printed) with a pin every two inches for a perfect fit. At this stage, you should have a kind of pouch with printed fabric on outside, plain fabric inside and handles between those two layers.

8. Prick with the sewing machine all around the bag, leaving an opening of 4 inches between the handles (one side only) to allow you to revert it. To add some strength, iron once or twice on the handles fixation. Cut the surplus of plain fabric.

9. Revert the bag right side out. Two “bellows” are obtained: A plain one and a printed one, with the handles in the middle. Then, retract the plain part inside the printed part.

10. Last step: the finishes! With a matching thread and a needle, close the opening of 4 cm by pricking close to the edges in order to be invisible.