Sewing on and Serging forward

A few weeks ago I made my first foray into the world of making a lined Tote bag. I had some good quality medium weight cotton and some heavyweight poly/cotton material, both in shades of blue so I dived in. I wanted something a little more complicated to make than the Morsbag , so I turned to my copy of Merchant and Mills: Sewing Book  (which I highly recommend) for inspiration/a pattern. I went for their Tote Bag, which is a little more complex to make than your average "YouTube Tote Bag", having a 2" gusset, is fully lined and has a pocket. I stuck pretty rigidly to the pattern for the bag and lining, but omitted the inside pocket and made my own cloth straps from the outer fabric rather than add leather straps. The bag took a couple  of hours to make. I am very pleased with the results, so much so that I made a second on a few days ago, this one has webbing strap handles. This is a great large shopper and I am sure I will be making more in the future. Me...

A quick project that I did today was to make a Hussif which I found in the projects section of the Merchant & Mill "Sewing Book". A Hussif is a sewing roll of tools and thread inspired by the rolls that WW1 soldiers used to maintain their uniforms. My version, which is almost identical to the pattern in the "Sewing Book", holds a pair of small scissors, a tape measure, pack of Household needles, seam ripper, two pots of pins and two spools of heavy duty thread. The Hussif is not only a roll to store and protect the equipment, it also has a built-in pin cushion. As the Merchant and Mills pattern may be copyright, I have not included it here. I just need to find a couple of Tic-Tac boxes to hold the pins instead if the childproof "pill pots" which are a safe but a little on the chubby side.