Beach Bag

This project was started out of frustration knowing we are going on holiday in the summer and I rarely have space for anything in my bag by the time I have tried to get in towels and swimmers for all the family so I designed this bag to be larger that the average tote and have a strap that could fit comfortably over my shoulder.

Being a bag I wanted to use fabric that was thicker than normal quilters cotton and had some gorgeous fabric left over from when I made the curtains for our dining room (I ended up loving the fabric so much that we did curtains for the lounge in the same range but different colours). The fabric was from John Lewis but is made by Malabar Fabrics and is from their Chimichanga collection

I added a pocket on the outside which I stitched across part way down so that I wouldn't be stuffing it too full of rubbish and lined the bag using a curtain lining fabric. The straps to the bag are stronger than they look as I used webbed polypropylene strapping inside the lining fabric, see the link below for this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ES15J76?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

Once I had thought I had finished the bag I found I wasn't particularly pleased with the way it hung so I got some sew in magnetic bag fasteners see the link here to the ones I used:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O0WJRR6?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

I added one to each side to bring it in slightly so it didn't gape as much and then one in the middle so it would hold it together.

I am really pleased with the way it turned out, the only slight change I would make would be to use an interfacing on the outer fabric to give it slightly more structure.