Creative Guest: Ruffled Tote Tutorial by Blue Robin Cottage

 

 

Hello to all you lovely and beautifully talented Ucreate readers! I am so thrilled and honored to be a creative guest on Ucreate and share my ruffled tote tutorial with you today! :)

I'm Sierra from Blue Robin Cottage!  I really discovered my love for creating things at a very early age. I think I might have been the only 2nd grader with a vintage inspired valentine's box complete with pearls, lace, glitter and elegant paper dollies. I started sewing about a year and a half ago and it was love at first sight! When I'm not crafting (which isn't very often) I  enjoy the metropolitan atmosphere in DC with my two sweeties, antiquing or decorating my home. :) At the Blue Robin Cottage, I love to share all the fun craft and home decor projects I've been working on. Stop on by and see what I'm up to! :)


Now onto the tutorial! I am so in love with everything ruffly these days! I decided I needed a tote bag to put all of my things in and of course it HAD to be ruffled! :) This tote is a lot easier than you think so let's get started!

Here's what you'll need for this project:

*1 Canvas tote bag: I found these at Walmart in a package of 3. I think they ran around $6.

*4, 4inch strips of fabric: I used a medium weight home decorator fabric- it just seems to hold up better but you can certainly use a regular cotton fabric


* Any embellishments you wish to add


*Jean sewing machine needle

Step 1: Cut your fabric into 4, 4 inch strips- depending on how ruffly you want your ruffles you can cut your strips double or triple the width of your tote for the length.

Step 2: Sew a zig zag stitch on both sides of the strips- this prevents the fabric from fraying, you could also use fray check if you wanted to.



Step 3: Its ruffle time! The easiest way I  have found to do ruffles is to push the top part of your fabric strip through your presser foot on your sewing machine faster than it can sew so it creates nice gathers. Just keep pushing and sewing until you get to the end. So simple!


Step 4: Lay out your ruffles to decide where you want to place them on your tote.


Step 5: Pin your ruffles one strip at a time onto your canvas tote, starting at the bottom.



Step 6: Sew the ruffles onto your tote- This is where your jean needle will come in handy because canvas fabric is so thick. The first 2 ruffles are a little difficult to sew onto your tote but if you take off your extra compartment on your sewing machine arm, you can easily slid your tote over the base of your sewing machine.

If you want to add any embellishments, you can sew those right onto the top of your tote! The possibilities are endless! I added a burlap rosette and some fabric rosettes to match:

 

 

And there you have it... a simple, adorable ruffle tote! These would make such cute gifts, they are so easy to make and lets not forget to mention cost efficient! ;)



Thank you so much for having me today! :) I hope to see you soon at the Blue Robin Cottage!