Colorful Dogs and Bees Tote

Here is my latest...

The main fabric has all these crazy looking dogs on it, some with their paws in the air, others with their eyeballs popping out.  I used the green fabric for contrast because it had little bees flying around, which worked well with the dogs acting nuts.

Believe it or not, I forgot to include pockets on the inside again.  The pattern doesn't include pockets in the instructions and I forgot to make a cheat sheet, so this time I inked a reminder right into the instruction booklet.  The problem is that every time I sit down to sew, I get a gazillion phone calls or someone comes to the door and I get dragged off in some different direction.  Next thing I know, I'm racing to get the tote done before the next interruption.

Without fail, my dogs always start barking at something outside whenever I'm sewing.  I've learned that I can't ignore their barking, because they are usually barking at something legitimate, like a delivery or someone trespassing.  There are more illegal activities going on during this pandemic.  It's too bad people can't entertain themselves by taking up sewing rather than breaking the law.

I looked into getting a county business license so I can open an Etsy shop to sell these totes, but the website says I have to apply in person, an hour's drive away.  Who wants to do that during a pandemic?  I've had hospital helicopters racing past my house for the past two days.  I don't even want to risk going to the grocery store at the moment.

Speeding Up Production

I set up two sewing machines side by side with different colored threads so that I could piece together two totes simultaneously.  I was less likely to forget the instructions between totes that way.  There's always some step I forget, and then I have to either rip out all the seams and backtrack, or come up with a new way to piece the tote together with what I have to work with.

Speaking of ripping out seams, I also finally took the machines off a 2 stitch length and bumped them up to 3 to making seam ripping easier.  The longer stitches still hold together fine, but it's easier to get a seam ripper underneath the stitches if they are longer.

At first, I brought out my old New Home sewing machine and used it along with my new Singer Heavy Duty machine.  The Singer never causes me any problems, but the New Home drove me bananas.  I was experiencing everything from a fussy thread tension to broken needles to tangles of thread jamming the machine.  When it seemed I was never going to get out of that cycle, I set the New Home aside and pulled out my industrial Brother machine.  I normally reserve the Brother for using on a quilt rack, because it has an extra long arm, but I haven't set up my quilt rack in years.  Let me just say that the Brother machine was a breath of fresh air.  I can hear angels sing when I sew with it.  Problems solved.

This first tote I completed uses a glitter fabric with purples, teals, and greens that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day.  It's a really nice, thick, quality fabric.

I made taller pockets on the front to fit sunglasses and mobile phones.

So pretty.  I kept the purple theme on the inside, but totally forgot to make interior pockets like I had planned.  I think all the fussing around with that New Home machine tried my patience and I just wanted to get the job done.  In the future I'll tape notes to the wall in front of my work table to keep me on track.

Keeping the with dark color scheme, I used a black zipper.

This next bag used a purple and teal fabric I've had around for a while, and I've been salivating over using it to make a tote.  I struggled to find contrasting fabric in my stash.  It's difficult to see from a distance, but the green almost matches a small amount of green in the main fabric.

This bag has super tall pockets.  I think I'll tone it down in the future, because it almost completely covers the main fabric on the front.

However, you can see it it clearly on the back.

Black zipper.

Teal interior.