Detroit Tigers tote bag

Charlotte's elementary school is holding some type of fundraiser that I haven't really taken the time to understand, but I know each class is supposed to put together a themed basket full of fun things to be auctioned off (or something like that).  I was informed that the theme was "Detroit Tigers", so I figured I could sew a little something for the basket using some Tigers fabric.  Unfortunately, Jo-Ann's was out of said fabric (though I did find University of Washington fabric for some reason???) and I was too lazy to drive all over the place to hunt some down.  Appliqué to the rescue!

The solid fabrics are both duck cloth.  The chevron fabric is a thin quilting cotton.  The straps (it's one continuous loop, so maybe I should just say strap?) are a nylon webbing.  As usually happens when I design my own bag, I am not thrilled with the outcome and would do many things different if I ever made it again.  For future reference, my cut list was two pieces of 18" x 9" in navy, one piece of 18" x 10" in orange, two pieces of lining cut to 18" x 14" (probably should have been more like 18" x 13.5"), and the nylon webbing was 3 yards long.  I boxed the corners at about 5 inches (along the hypotenuse).

For some reason, I thought it would be cool if the logo was on both the navy and the orange parts of the tote bag, but in hindsight I wish I had made it smaller and only sewn it on the navy part.  I also was an idiot and chose chevron fabric even though I always hate using it because it's almost always printed off-grain.  Let's just hope the poor soul who purchases the Room 17 Kindergarten basket doesn't notice.

Despite my best efforts, one strap ended up remarkably longer than the other.  I have absolutely no idea how this happened.  There's no way to get the strap off an adjust it, so I'm going to have to cut the strap down near where it meets the bag and take a bit out.  Let's hope I can sew it together cleanly enough that the purchaser doesn't notice.  I'm also not thrilled with how there are teeny threads sticking out from between the stitches around the "D".  I keep trying to trim them, but I can't seem to cut them close enough.  So, I'm not in love with this bag, I will most definitely not bother putting a label with my name on it inside, and I hope to heck that no one I know buys our class basket!


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