As I sat down to plan my sewing, I was uninspired and pressed for time all at once. I had a pretty large backlog of Halloween and fall sewing on my to-do list, but they were all fairly straightforward projects, much in the same vein as what I had recently been sewing. I wanted a short, quick, palette cleanser of a sew that would invigorate me and get me even more pumped for all that Halloween goodness. I thought and thought without much luck, until I came across a request for silent auction donations by our local library. It occurred to me that this was just what I needed - a timely, festive, worthwhile opportunity to pay it forward while checking off everything I was looking for in a project.
I usually project with a zoom of 59.1% to get patterns true to size
I started scheming right away. I canvassed my favorite sewing pages for suggestions on what to sew (none of them were what I pictured originally!) and checked the Ellie and Mac website for ideas. As it turns out, the stars aligned and I found the Tote to Go pattern in the free section of the site. Many of the suggestions I received were for a tote to carry library books, so I ran with it. I downloaded the pattern and got to work digging through my stash for fabrics I could use. A bonus for this project: I tackled just a little of that giant stash to sew sustainably!
For this project, I was able to play with the projector zoom to allow for maximum use of the fabric I had available
The first thing I realized was that the size of the tote, while awesome, was going to be a bit big for the fabrics I had available to me. This is another reason I love cutting with my projector. I normally set my zoom at 59.1% for true to size patterns, but this was going to both result in a pretty large tote for books and also be too big for my stashed fabrics. I played with the zoom on the projector until the cut lines fit on the piece with little room to spare. After double checking I had enough of my other fabrics for pockets and straps at that size, I moved forward with cutting the bag.
Since the auction is taking place in October, and I was ready for Halloween projects, I embraced the theme and pulled out some past quilting cotton prints! I wanted something a little sturdier for the main bag fabric, so I used some canvas that I had purchased as an option for a park bag for my son back in the spring. I had a big piece because I went with a different color for his bag, plus the green was perfectly spooky with the eyeballs I used for the lining! The ‘Boo!’ on the outside pocket tied in that festive orange and black, and the solid black straps brought the whole thing together and offered a great contrast to the bright green bag.
To finish off the whole package, I added a self-drafted bookmark to the bag. Now the recipient can keep their place in that whole tote’s worth of books! I’m so happy with how this turned out and I couldn’t be more excited to drop this off at the library. I’m often asked if I sell my makes, or receive the comment that I should be selling them. There are many reasons I don’t do that, but one of them is that I very much enjoy gifting my makes. As we approach the holidays, this project was the perfect kick-off to that amazing season of thankfulness and giving. What Ellie and Mac patterns could you use to sew it forward? Which ones would make great gifts? There are many amazing options on the site: which ones will you use this season?
(Written by: Megan Harvey)
