DIY Beach Bag

Here is a great example of a slightly over-sized beach bag that is perfect for holding several towels and sunscreen and other fun-in-the-sun items! This is fairly straight forward to make as it is simply five rectangular panels sewn together, not too complicated to lay out. I embellished my bag with some fun chevron pattern on the bottom portion of the bag for extra flair that doubles as reinforcement for the bottom that will likely be tossed around and take the brunt of the stress of the bag.

I closely followed a tutorial for a Canvas Beach Bag on the Elle Apparel Blog that you can find here for more explicit instructions. http://www.elleapparelblog.com/2010/08/canvas-beach-bag.html

My bag is slightly different and instead of taking you through step-by-step how I made my bag I will simply point out how mine is different the the Elle Apparel bag. Please follow her instructions for step by step instructions on how to make a great bag. Thanks Leanne!

The dimensions for my bag was 16in(H) x 21in(L) x 7in(W)

What you will need:
- Two 16in x 21in rectangles (front and back)
- Two 16in x 7in rectangles (sides)
- One 7in x 21in rectangle (bottom)
- Two 30in straps

-Sewing machine, thread, pins

If you would like the accent color embellishment you additionally need:
- Two 6in x 21in rectangle (front and back)
- Two 6in  7in rectangle (sides)
- One 7in x 21in rectangle (bottom)

If you would like to add an inside pocket panel you additionally need:
- One 12in x 16in white fabric rectangle.
 

Steps:
1) Start by cutting all your fabric. If you are adding the accent fabric or the inside pocket, assemble these before assembly the sides together. Also hem all your rough edges. The blue fabric I used is a plastic fabric so I used a candle to gentle melt the edges to prevent fraying.  Here is the side with the inside pocket:

 As you can see it is simply a rectangular piece of fabric that I sewed a few straight stitches in to make the different sized pockets.

2) Sew the four sides together one at a time. Start with sewing the front to one of the sides, then add the back to the that side, the complete the front and back with the last side. This should leave you with a tube.

3) Attach the bottom. It should look like this:
(I took this picture after I had finished, we have not added the straps at this point) 

 

4) Now attach the straps. You can also use straps like this, rope, or stiff handles, anything you would like. The length is also totally personal preference. My straps were close to 30in each. Whatever you do, just make sure to really sew them to the bag, don't want anything to break!

5) My fiancé loves anchors so I drew and then stitched on an anchor pattern on the outside with a wide set, short stitch length zig-zag pattern. 

I purposefully skipped over a lot of the nitty-gritty sewing steps here, please see the linked tutorial at the beginning of the post for more explicit instructions on a similar bag. Overall it is a pretty simple idea, just a bunch of rectangles sewn together to make a nice flat-bottomed beach bag.

Enjoy your new beach bag!

~Andrew