I am not the athletic type by any means, but I LOVE swimming! It’s really like an addiction for me. As soon as summer comes around, there’s only one thing on my mind – it’s swim season and I can’t wait to swim every day!
I used to carry my swim gear in an old tote bag that I acquired on one of my innumerable trips to the San Diego Zoo when we lived in San Diego. This year I noticed that it got a long tear at the bottom. Well, I just had to sew a bag to tote my swim gear in!
So I got to work and made a paper piecing pattern based on the swim signs seen at official swimming venues. It was an easy block to stitch too!
I used the same tutorial to make this tote bag from Skip To My Lou that I used for my Spring Tote Bag. I used a little thicker interfacing this time – Pellon 809. It gave the bag very nice stability which I like.
The old bag was 8″ deep, and I wanted the same measurement for this bag as well to fit big towels, clothing, etc for two people. I found this tutorial at Lazy Girl Designs which teaches you how to make the flat bottom accurately by cutting squares at the bottom corners. It also has a very handy chart at the bottom of the page that summarizes the ratio of the corner cuts and the resulting size of the bag. I made 4″ cuts and got a perfect 8″ deep bag. I also like this method better than pinching corners to make the flat bottom.
My husband likes to use swim earplugs which come in a tiny little container. So I made a pocket inside to store that container along with our keys. No more hunting for keys and small stuff within bulky towels. I followed this tutorial at Sew Mama Sew to make the pocket and picked up some useful tips. I used a really lightweight interfacing which afforded stability without being too stiff.
So there you have it. I combined three tote bag tutorials to make this one bag. It’s a 13″ high, 12″ wide and 8″ deep bag with a 8″ x 6″ pocket. I also used fabric from my stash, so the color scheme was directed by that a little. I took it to the swim yesterday and it was perfect!
I am so tempted to make a wall hanging with the Summer Swim quilt pattern. You can get the 10″ Summer Swim pattern from my shop if you want to make a bag for yourself.
Have a wonderful and active summer!
-Soma
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