Shirts and Skirts

For the past couple of years I haven’t done nearly the amount of crafting that I had in the few years previous.  I’ve been too busy with other things.  But now I’m just working at one job, and the other people I drive around have cut back on the number of jobs that they are working at.  And it’s still winter, despite the thermometer, so it’s still sewing time.  All of which adds up to some inspiration, in the form of tote bags.

I started with a simple, basic pattern.  It’s about 18 x 14, and doesn’t have any pockets.  And because it’s so simple I couldn’t resist making it reversible.  That’s a thing for me-I love the reversible stuff.  Here’s bag one:

Can you see why I’m calling this post shirts and skirts?  I’m digging into my stash of thrift store and garage sale finds to make these bags, almost entirely from repurposed shirts and skirts.  It makes for some interesting details.

This is the second bag.  I didn’t take a picture of it, but there is a pocket on the reverse.  Handy!

And from there I went nuts.  I started adding more pockets and tabs to button the bag closed.  Each one is a little different, depending on the clothing I was working with.  Smaller shirts meant a smaller bag.  Sometimes I was able to incorporate existing pockets. Take a look!

Fun, right?  Now I’m ready to move on to the next idea, another set of totes made from pants.  Let’s hope it goes well!