Wholecloth: New! Wholecloth Morris Tote Sewing Pattern

The Morris Tote is the quilted version of a classic tote bag. It's a medium sized bag that can carry all of your daytime essentials. The quilted body gives the Morris a soft structure and the quilted front and interior pockets are folded to show off the backing fabrics. All of the edges and seams are finished with binding, creating another opportunity to mix prints or highlight a special fabric. The Morris has a snap closure, short handles and a long adjustable shoulder strap.

There are two options for approaching the Morris Tote. Option 1 is a fully custom bag. The body and pockets are self-quilted, the straps and handle are made with fabric, and the binding is self-made. Option 2 is the quick sew version of the bag. The body and pockets are made with pre-quilted fabric, the strap and handles are cotton webbing, and the binding is ready made.

The expanded features of this full-sized Morris Tote are designed to be easily transferred to its little sister, the Mini Morris. You can easily add the snap closure, and shoulder strap to the Mini, or omit them to make the full-sized Morris match your Mini.

The sewing pattern includes:

- clear step by step illustrated instructions

- dimensions to draft your own pattern pieces or cut the pieces directly from fabric

- instructions to make coordinating binding and handles, or substitute ready-made

- instructions to quilt your own fabric, or substitute pre-quilted

- dimensions in inches and centimeters

- full video tutorial for sewing the Morris (coming to Youtube next week!)

Finished bag dimensions: 10 x 13 x 4 in (25.4 x 33 x 10.2 cm)

(Pssst...the discount code works on the mini and the full-sized Morris, might as well get both!)

Supplies:

The Morris Tote is made with 2 layers of light weight woven fabric quilted together with a single layer of low loft quilt batting. Here I'm using a 4oz denim as both main and backing fabric, but you can use any light weight fabric, or piece a few together for a more colorful tote. The handles and strap can are designed to me made from the same fabric as the body, with the addition of some medium weight fusible interfacing. For a speedier sew, you can easily substitute pre-quilted fabric, 1 1/2" webbing for the handles, 1" webbing for the strap and use ready made binding for a faster sew. The Morris (and Mini Morris) are great without the hardware, but for a more versatile tote the full-sized Morris has the options of an adjustable strap and snap closure. For these features you'll need (1) 5/8"(16mm) heavy duty snap, (2) 1" (2.5cm) swivel clasps, (2) 1/2" (12mm) D rings, and a [1] 1"(2.5cm) length adjuster.

Difficulty:

The Morris Tote is a good fit for advanced beginner sewists. It involves binding multiple layers of fabric that can take a little bit of practice to get a neat finish. If you're familiar with the process of binding seams for quilts or garments this pattern will be a piece of cake. A determined sewist with a few patterns under their belt can always take it one step at a time. Anyone with a pile of beautiful garments scraps that deserve to be celebrated can make the Morris Tote their own.

Sewalong:

I'm planning a full video sewalong making the Morris Tote from start to finish. (It's nearly finished, hoping to have it out next week!) The sewalong will make this pattern more accessible to less experienced sewists. Sign up for the newsletter to be notified of the final release date of the sewalong. Or subscribe to the Wholecloth Patterns Youtube channel.