Among the Untrodden Ways: A holiday sewing distraction

This weekend I am heading off to the States for a couple of weeks. I'm meeting my parents in Hawaii and then heading to LA to see my best girlfriend of all time who moved there a few years back. I'm super excited to see the three people I love most in the world all in the space of just a few weeks, and to sneak in a cheeky second summer.

I promised myself I wouldn't leave packing until the last minute but of course that's been an epic fail. I'm sitting here with only one day to go and absolutely nothing is packed or organised. I keep telling myself that it''s not a big deal since everyone tells me the shopping in the States is amazing so a half empty case is probably a good thing.

So what have I been doing instead of packing? Sewing of course. Apart from the Sorbetto tops I made for my Mum, I also decided a new tote bag would be essential. My idea was to make something that scrunched up when it wasn't needed but would go with most of my limited wardrobe options. I didn't use a pattern so this just evolved as the evening wore on. It started off by making 18 different squares from my favourite retro fabrics.

Initially I thought I'd just stitch two sets of nine squares together and that would form the front and back of the bag - simple! After I made the two panels however it became clear that it would definitely not be big enough to hold all the junk I need to cart about on holiday. To fix this I decided to add a gusset in a lime wool mix fabric. What followed at this point was a whole lot of swear words and unpicking but eventually the gusset was in and the corners, although not perfect, were not too bad.

Front

Back

To finish the bag off I added a lining, made the same way as the outer with a gusset (cue more swearing), and included a two-compartment pocket. Lastly I made two handles from an obliging pillow case and around midnight it was finally finished.