The Professional Tote, finally!

The Great P decided we were going to make the Professional Tote bag. It looked like a good idea, and we thought it might make a good class at the shop. Well yes, and yes. But it took me FOREVVVVVER. There were a lot of steps and I had to read the directions. I'm not good at directions. I find them tedious. And usually annoying. These instructions were annoying because they were well written, accurate and if you follow them religiously all things go well. So unexpected. I was trapped!

And yet I still managed to go astray occasionally. Don't look at the handles too closely. I may yet take that one out for a redo.

I am so pleased with the result! I had to run out and buy it a matching umbrella, and I even paid full price for it. The bag is meant to travel with you, and it has lots of thoughtful pockets to help with that. There are outside end drawstring pockets for water and umbrella. There are zipped, open, tabbed and expandable pockets. The inside centre pocket is zipped and takes a small laptop or iPad nicely. There's even a strap for hitching it to your luggage, but it lays flat when not in use so it's like an invisible helper.

The Great P and I went with DecoFuse for the outer panels. This gives it excellent stiffness. I cut mine to fit just to the seam allowances, so I didn't need to sew through more than 1 layer. We used a duo side fusible foam to line the laptop pocket. It isn't as easy to fuse, but really does a nice job of padding. We went with an optional zipper installation that lets you open the bag fully. Excellent idea. Those instructions are posted here and shared by a generous and brilliant blogger.

So I would highly recommend this bag, but also would say safety comes in numbers here. Do it with at least one friend. It takes time and faith, but turns out really well!