... and a Tea Towel Bag

Having seen this tea towel in a charity shop, I thought it was something that my Mum would like (she's Welsh and she loves to cook!!). As you may know, for Christmas this year we decided to attempt to make some handmade pressies :)  So with this in mind I came up with the idea of making this into a tote style bag!

Materials:

• Tea towel
• Sewing materials
• Belt (or other suitable handle)

There are quite a few different patterns out there for making tote bags, but I didn't want to lose any of the design of this tea towel.  So I worked around the existing dimensions, rather than cutting it up..... and here's how I made my version!

First wash and iron your tea towel... though as you can see from the photos, my ironing could do with a bit more practice!

Fold in half lengthways, pin and sew up each side (leaving a seam width).  The top side is left as the opening to the bag.

Press open the seams....

For the handle, I found a matching green belt in my local charity shop and then removed the buckle parts.

I then sewed the handle onto the inside, trying to match it up with the seams.  I went with handsewing on this, as wasn't sure if my little sewing machine would cope with the thickness :)

Turn back out and there you have your finished bag!

I gave it to my Mum for Christmas and she really liked it! Hopefully she'll find it useful as well :)