This was kind of a spur of the moment project for me. I wanted to do something a little different from garment sewing and decided to venture into bagmaking. My toddler has been maxing out his diaper bag lately between potty training but still using diapers, bigger clothes, snacks, etc. I’ve been keeping a backpack in the car with the lesser used stuff and a medium size LL Bean tote for his more frequently used stuff and have been wanting to consolidate into one bag because I also tend to keep some of my own stuff in his diaper bag. This pattern was attractive to me because it is simple and uses minimal speciality materials.
Background
The Rugged Tote and Portfolio from The Green Pepper is an unlined tote bag with optional exterior pockets, a zipped interior pocket, and D-ring for keys. You can use either webbing or self fabric for the straps, which come in regular and long lengths. The bottom of the bag is actually a double layer of fabric, as a separate bag bottom is sewn onto the main body of the tote. If you made it out of 25 oz canvas it would be very similar to the LL Bean Boat and Tote.
The tote and portfolio styles use the same pattern pieces. The only difference is that you sew the corners of the bag into a triangle at the end to make the tote version.
There are four tote sizes, listed below as height x width x depth:
- Small: 11.75” x 9.5” x 5”
- Medium: 13.25” x 13” x 6”
- Large: 15” x 16.5” x 7.5”
- Extra-large: 16” x 19” x 8.5”
These roughly correspond to the size of the LL Bean Boat and Tote bags.
I made the extra large tote with the long straps and all of the optional pockets and D-ring.
Materials
Recommended fabrics are sturdy midweight to heavyweight fabrics like denim, canvas, and Cordura.
I used a midweight black 100% cotton twill I had in my stash for over ten years. For the straps I used nylon webbing. The zipper is a #5 nylon coil zipper from Wawak that was also in my stash. I used Gutermann Mara 70 thread for all construction.
The keyring was a 1.25” D-ring I’ve had in my stash forever from Bagmakers Supply.
Construction
I thought the included instructions were pretty good. I just was working very late at night and got confused about the zipper and how the ends of it were secured close until I went further along and realized that the inside strap actually covers it.
Clothing Engineer 