August Color Palette Project - A Quilter's Tote - Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

August Color Palette Project - A Quilter's Tote

When I do my color palette projects each month I try to use the color theme to make something that I need. Last month it was postcards. This month it's a quilter's tote. I have been wanting a very large tote bag that I could use to take my quilts to my guild meetings. I don't like any of the totes that I have because the straps are so long that the totes drag the floor. It's a common problem with the vertically challenged. I decided to use this month's challenge to design a tote that would fit me.

The challenge colors are blues, browns and reds.

I started with one of my favorite gradients, Beach Walk and then dyed some red fabric to go with. To tie the two fabrics together better I did a lot of stenciling and screen printing on both. I used a feather stencil as a not to the original color palette inspiration photo.

Then I built this bag. It's about 16" tall, 20" wide and 6" deep.

One side features the blue part of the gradient and the other side features the brown. But the best part is that there are 2 sets of handles. With the short handled I can carry the tote with my arm fully extended or I can use it as a shoulder bag with the long handles.

Best of all, it can hold 3 quilts!

It is fully lined (because I have a big stash of garment lining fabric) which makes sliding the quilts in and out very easy. I even added a big pocket for a notepad or other things that I take to my meetings.

I love the new bag and can't wait to start using it to carry show-and-tell to the meetings. I think I will make a couple more of them.

Posted at 01:26 PM in Color Palette Challenge, Crafts, Quick Gifts | Permalink