Spoonflower tote

by Linda Theil

Alisa and I created a personalized tote to put in each family cabin at our summer weekend retreat. We wanted to try printing unique fabric at Spoonflower and using that fabric to make the totes. We dood it! Our finished canvas tote is 12-inches wide by 13-inches tall by 5-inches wide.

I chose a photo from our same vacation site last year, ran it through the Waterlogue app, used the GoDaddy Studio -- formerly Over -- app to add personalization, and gave the resulting photo file to Alisa.

She laid out the square photos with bottoms together to make an 18x36-inch image, then positioned three images across the fabric width of 56-inches, making three tote bag prints fit on one yard of Spoonflower's 56-inch wide Cyprus Cotton Canvas. Our finished tote measured 12-inches wide by 13-inches tall by five-inches deep.

This is the image Alisa uploaded to Spoonflower.

Here are Alisa's directions for preparing our art for Spoonflower:

You will need to get your design into a .JPG file at the proper DPI and pixel size for the item you are printing. support.spoonflower.com is very helpful. You will want to read Learn about Image Resolution before proceeding. Directions below are for creating a single design to print on one yard of Cypress Cotton Canvas

Open your Design Software. I used Silhouette Studio 4.4 Business Edition.
Create a field that is the size of your fabric. The Cypress Cotton Canvas we used is 56” x 36” (see the chart at Sizing Your Design for other fabrics).
Copy your photo into the field and edit as you like. I created 3 panels across the width of the fabric.
Save the file as a JPG with the correct pixels and DPI settings - 8400 x5400 pixels, 150 DPI See Note below.
Upload your file to spoonflower.com via their Design Library page.

Note: If you cannot save file as JPG (or are concerned that the DPI and pixels on your design are not correct) you can upload the design as a PDF file to GIMP and make the conversion there before uploading to Spoonflower. See their instruction document Tutorial: Create a Large-scale Image with Free Software.

One yard of the printed canvas cost around $32 with a 15% discount coupon, including tax and shipping; making each tote cost approximately $11 per tote for the unique, personalized fabric. The material arrived within 10 days from making the order.

Materials -- to make one tote you will need:

Canvas 18 x 34-inches Note: if you are using a directional fabric, you will have to seam your fabric on the 18-inch width to make the bottoms of the images lie adjacent to each other so that when you seam your tote, each side appears upright. You will not have to do this if your fabric is non-directional or if you purchase the Theil "Summer Tote" fabric from Spoonflower because the image has already been flipped in the print.
Three yards of 1.5-inch-wide coordinating cotton webbing. We used Bermuda Sky, Arctic Blue, and Mystic Jade from Etsy supplier, Penny Supplies.
Bosal Craft-Tex or Pellon Pel-Tex heavyweight interfacing, or other stiff interfacing or plastic for tote base insert: a piece five inches by 12 inches
Coordinating 40 weight polyester thread
Walking foot for your sewing machine, suggested

Instructions:

Mark a line three inches from both long sides of your fabric. This line will mark the placement of the outside edge of your cotton webbing. Mark three inches from the top of both short ends along your three-inch vertical line; this line will mark where you stop stitching your webbing. I use a bone folder to mark my fabric. Note: You can move this placement line toward the center of your tote an inch or two if you wish. Ours is placed closer to bag edge to accommodate the personalization on printed bags.

Make a 19-inch template of ribbon or paper to use to measure your drop handles. Beginning at the center of one side of your tote pin your webbing in place. Do not cut your webbing.

When you reach the three inch mark, leave webbing free and clip to top/horizontal edge of tote. Clip your 19-inch template along the webbing and clip the webbing to the top of your tote at the end of the template. This forms your first drop handle. Measure down three inches and begin pinning webbing along the vertical mark until you reach the other horizontal edge of your fabric. Follow the same process to form your second drop handle. Continue pinning webbing along marked line until you reach the beginning of the webbing. Leave end free until you have attached all the webbing.

Using your walking foot, stitch along both edges of your webbing, reinforcing at handle edges with stitched 1.5-inch square boxes with X stitched inside. When you are finished trim the edge where your webbing ends meet. Zigzag-stitch along the edge where the webbing meets, and reinforce with 1.5-inch square of stitching.

Pin the sides of your tote together with wrong sides together and stitch down both sides of the tote using a 1/2-inch seam allowance. Fold both seam allowances together to one side of the seam. Fold up bottom corners to form base of tote and pin in place. Stitch on top of seam through all layers with a zig-zag stitch to hold seam to tote and bottom corners in place against the outside of the tote. Repeat for second side of tote.