At First Sight – The Clara Tote Bag

Hello! It’s Lauren here from Molly and Mama and I’m so happy to be sharing my latest make from this beautiful new fabric collection called At First Sight by Dani Mogstad.

If you’ve ever visited my Instagram feed, you’ll know I am a lover of pastel shades. So when I saw Dani’s new collection, it appealed to me right away. I selected a variety of the prints to sew with, including the main floral, hearts, stripes, circles, vines and blossoms, all in a combination of the pink, blush and green tones. There’s also some dramatic black prints included in the collection too, and some gorgeous quilt panels.

These prints worked so well together that I wanted to feature them all! So I decided to sew one of my new sewing patterns, the Clara Tote Bag. It’s specially designed for sewists who are wanting to start their bag making journey. It’s super easy to sew! But it includes extra features like a swivel clip tab, pretty trims and hand quilting, which takes the bag from simple to striking!

The detailed pattern teaches you simple nesting patchwork for assembling the front and back panels, before adding the top border. The original bag features hand quilting details but for this version I utitlised one of the decorative wavy quilting stitches on my sewing machine. I love the look of it, so think I’ll use it in more projects too!

It was lovely featuring the white floral print for the bag lining. I then used another floral for the handles. They’re so easy to assemble and they’re reinforced too.

It’s amazing what a difference a little bit of lace trim and hand quilting can make. These small touches don’t take long at all. I also decided to add one of my felt flowers to the front, as the colours matched so well. If you’d like to make your own just sign up to the newsletter to receive the FREE SEWING PATTERN. You can use them to adorn so many projects.

The Clara Tote Bag is a lovely size for shopping, taking to the farmer’s market or even using as a book bag. Practical and fun! You can see more examples of this bag over on the Molly and Mama Blog.

Here’s a view of Dani’s entire collection. Ask for ‘At First Sight’ at your local retailer in November.

To stay up to date with more Molly and Mama makes, please come and join the newsletter list and get your free felt flower pattern too.

Happy stitching, Lauren.

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