A Cheerful Summer Bag

Hello everyone,

My friend’s birthday is at the end of February, and I wanted to wrap her gift in style. Instead of cardboard and wrapping paper—which you just throw away—I’m using a colorful, hand-sewn summer bag as the packaging.

For this bag, I actually wanted to punch two large grommets into each of the attached handles and thread a ribbon through them. I had made a test piece just for this and set the eyelets. This is how it was supposed to look:





Unfortunately, my punch pliers couldn’t punch through the five layers of canvas fabric (the folded handle plus the bag’s outer fabric) and secure them in the eyelet. So the handles just had to stay as they were. If I’d known it wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t have sewn them on the outside so as not to disrupt the pretty floral pattern. But hindsight is always 20/20.

As a little personal touch, I ironed a piece of fabric with wide hem tape onto the inside. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have been able to sew it on here, since the seam would have been visible on the flowers on the outside. But the hem tape holds up very well.



The result is this cheerful summer bag. It doesn’t get any more colorful than this, does it?



The sun was shining today, so I was tempted to take a photo of the other side:



It’s nice and big and wide and sturdy—it holds a lot, and the bag doesn’t tip over.



By the way, the colorful canvas fabric is by Bine Brändle.

Best regards, Ina

WOW, that’s a great bag, I’d like one too, you sewed it beautifully, Ina

Best regards, Inge

Wow Ina, what a pretty, colorful bag. It really brightens up the day. Great job.

Have a lovely evening
Lots of love, Andrea

Dear Ina, what a beautiful bag. It’s not just fantastic packaging—it’s a gift in itself, because it’s sure to serve many purposes. I like things like that, too.

Warm regards from Monika

Thank you so much, my dears, for your praise. It makes me very happy and inspires me to take on new projects :-)

Warm regards, Ina