Mouthy Stitches Tote Bag: Finished!

Here it is, partner!  Will you like this tote?  I truly hope you do as I put a lot of time, effort and thought into this little guy.

As part of Mouthy Stitches, we are all making a tote bag using this tutorial.  It's a really simple, direct tute with lots of play room to personalize it as you go.  In Mouthy Stitches, we were to piece at least one side and spice it up for our partner so long as it resembled the original size/structure and remained reversible.  Want to see what I created for my partner?

I pieced this front using the Lone Starburst templates from Six White Horses.  The Chicopee fabric by Denyse Schmidt works here, I think.

I should say I didn't hang your bag on a diseased tree in the back garden.  The leaves are changing into their autumn oranges and browns.  Just in case you were wondering :)

The outer front and back were layered with batting and quilted.  The front is both hand and machine quilted to echo the star.

 

The back just has little 3 inch squares of Chicopee prints that made me happy on Essex linen.  It's quilted with little wavy lines in black thread.  Quilting wavy lines to look irregular is harder to do than you think!

The lining is Summersville with two pockets of Essex linen.  There's a little ribbon loop on the edge to hook your key fob onto.  I hate loosing my keys in the bottom of a bag and thought you might be the same, partner.

The other half of the lining is straight up Summersville.  The lining has a fusible interfacing on both sides to add to the stiffness of the bag.  It's still soft and has give, but it won't fall over as soon as you let go of the handles.

While I was out taking photos, the girls came over to see what the fuss was all about.  They were totally interested, but were not allowed to get too close!

There you go, partner.  I hope you like it!  I hope you use it often and that it holds up for you (eeek!).  I enjoyed thinking of you while I stitched away the past few weeks.