DIY: Tote Pillow

Hey there Sleepy Muffin Readers!

I apologize for not posting a new entry any sooner. I was absolutely determined to make sure my next post was a DIY post, and then when I started getting things together for my project I encountered some technical difficulties (Thanks mom for rescuing me!).

So without any more delays here's my very first DIY  project!

Isn't this tote adorable??

Last weekend my husband and I went to Austin with my parents (more to come on that later). One of our stops there was the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. The museum had some pretty interesting exhibits, but my highlight of course was perusing the gift shop, in which I found the most ADORABLE retro styled cowgirl shopping tote. My only problem is I have tons of these types of totes in my closet already: so how could I justify getting this? Well, since I finally took a sewing class I figured I'd put those new found skills to work and make a small throw pillow out of it! The process was fairly simple and probably took me about an hour to do.

Items you'll need:

• One cloth tote bag
• Sewing tools (scissors, all purpose thread, pins, etc)
• poly-fil - I'm not a fan of the regular stuff you get at craft stores so I tried the bamboo kind this time and really liked the texture and result better

First, turn your tote inside out and clip off the handles of your tote as close to the connecting seam as possible.


I did run into a slight problem with my tote because it was originally sewn with a panel of fabric between the front and back of the tote which makes a nice roomy bag, but throws in a few more complications when you're making a pillow. I ended up deconstructing one of the discarded handles to turn it into the top panel of the pillow. In some ways this method turned out great cause I just matched up the seam with the edge of the tote and used that as a guide to pin my fabric together when I started planning on sealing up my tote.

That seam from the handle made a very nice guide to pin

After I started pinning, I started with one of the corners and carefully worked my way around the edge of the fabric. Since this was my first sewing project it definitely took me some time but it wasn't very difficult at all.

After I was done sewing, it was ready to fill! I turned my former tote right-side out and started filling my little pillow. After a while my husband was nice enough to test out the comfy-ness of the pillow and let me know if I needed to add more stuffing to it before I hand-stitched the opening shut.

And.....voila! All done! As you can see from my picture below it turned out pretty cute and huggable. Since this was my first actual sewing project I don't think it turned out perfect, but I was happy with the result.

After this little project, I'm definitely motivated to try this out with other totes that I love and don't use very often or even allow myself to buy a new cute tote here and there he he.