personalising a kids tote bag

[ClairesTravellingCircus]

Hello all

I want to sew a couple of tote bags for my twins due to start nursery soon to keep their things in. I thought I'd personalise them with their names, but not sure how to go about it.
I'm very much of a novice with the sewing machine, so it has to be simple!
What would be best? felt, applique, fabric? Any recommendations?

Many thanks

Felt is good to appliqué with because it doesn't fray. You can also reverse appliqué (contrasting fabric stitched on the inside of a cut out) but names might be tricky.

Not sewing but I recently got good results with transferring my Dd2's drawing onto a tote bag with crayons and sandpaper. She drew on the sandpaper, coloured in really heavily with the crayons, and I ironed it onto the bag. If your two are a bit little to draw their own design, you could get them to colour randomly, then you could cut out letters (reversed, of course, as they will be the other way round) and iron those on? Makes it really personalised and they'll enjoy seeing the magic of their art being printed. (DD was just gobsmacked at the rare sight of me using an iron!)

Buy some bondaweb- bought by the metre.
Then print out some alphabet letters and hold the paper up to a window so you can trace them on the reverse side of the page (does this make sense?) You now have the letters in reverse.
Now using your bondaweb as tracing paper - you write on the papery side, not the bumpy side - trace the letters. Cut them out roughly ie not exactly on the line of the letters, leave a space around the letters.
Arrange the cut out letters on the wrong side of some lovely fabric that contrasts with their tote fabric. The papery side should be up, bumpy side down with letters showing in reverse. Iron the letters onto the fabric.
Cut out exactly on the line. You now have the letters in lovely fabric with a paper backing.
Peel off the backing paper and arrange the letters on the tote. Iron them on.
Done!
If you're going to be washing the totes a lot, I would sew around each letter with either a zigzag stitch or a blanket stitch on my machine. But it would probably survive fine with out doing this.

Here's a youtube video showing how to do this. It's not doing letters but the process is the same.

Thank you holycow, have ordered the bondaweb, and have started on the bag, we'll see how I get on!!

How did you do? I would always appliqué before constructing the item so the stitching is between the outer fabric and the lining. Is have recommended this if I'd seen the post earlier.

Hello GrassIsntGreener

Has it happens I had done much progress (due to not sleeping babies) so I read your comment on time, event though I am not putting a liner in. I have so little time to do anything I thought I should keep it simple! (it is also my first bag and third absolute sewing project!)

Anyway I have bondawebbed the letters onto the bag, I need to sew around them, as I think it would look neater, but feeling very insecure about using the sewing machine on such small letters, may have to ahve a stab at hand sewing.

Thanks all for your advice!!

I copied this set of instructions to make the bag, and just bondawebbed letters on (I only did initials). I used funky buttons for holes in letters such as P, A, R which added security to the letters.

Bondaweb is fabulous stuff

I note those instructions say to thread the cord using tweezers, the more standard way is the push a safety pin through the cord and thread that way - quite a simple and quick method! Have fun.

Clairestravellingcircus, if your sewing machine has a blanket stitch, use that to outline your stitches - it reallly looks lovely. If not, use a zigzag stitch. You don't have to worry about it being perfect, it will look lovely! Good luck with it.

I did it! It looks.. Well very homemade but I'm happy!!

Well done. Time to start planing the next one!