Vintage Fabric Tote Bag!

I went to a carnival hosted by our local Catholic Church, last weekend. It's family friendly with no booze or smoking and generally well-behaved people and your typical death-trap type portable carnival rides. This year, I managed to find my way into their "Garage Sale" warehouse where I assume all the things that don't sale at garage sales end up at some point. Mostly junk, a few gems...like a table of vintage fabric and sewing patterns. I started going through the fabric and picked out 2 yards of this really nice green and cream upholstery fabric. I picked up a few gardening books, as well, and asked the woman "How much for all this?" She informed me that it was a donation garage sale and that I could pay her WHATEVER I thought it was worth. Of course, this was hosted by the Catholic Church which makes believers like me want to pony up on the donation because it's the right thing to do. I only had 9 dollars in my pocket, so I gave her all of it.

But now I had a ton of fabric that kinda smells funny and no idea what to do with it. So last night about 5pm, I had the itch to sew something. I had the pattern for a small pleated makeup bag. I didn't even pin it, I just held the pattern down with one hand and cut it 5 times as big around it. Did that with some yellow lining fabric, too. Cut some strips for a strap and upper band. I pleated where I thought it would look good, stuck a few pins in it and in 30 minutes, I turned out a pretty cute tote bag. It's flimsy, has no pockets, and the strap is upside down. But I like it...it has character!

Big enough to hold my wallet, phone, diapers, and a few sippy cups. As a mom, that's big enough for me!