DIY Canvas Tote Bag Tutorial

We’ve been meaning to create a tutorial for a canvas tote bag for some time now, so when we found some lovely teal canvas fabric from our local craft store, we took that as a sign.

This is a really simple bag to make because it doesn’t have any lining. For our bag, we used a canvas fabric with a design on the outside but you can use plain fabric for this if you prefer.

NOTE: It is best to use a fabric with a multi-directional print. The fabric will be folded in half and if you have a one-directional print the pattern on the back of the bag will be upside down,

What You Will Need:

• 1 piece of canvas fabric measuring 34 ½” x 15 ½”
• 2 pieces canvas fabric measuring 5″ x 55″ for the handles – Note that the finished length of the handles will be 104″ so this is why we cut two pieces as the width of our fabric off the roll was about 55″ in length. We sewed those two pieces together to make 110″ and then cut it back to 104″.

The trick with this bag is that we sew it together with the wrong sides facing. So our first seam is on the right side of the fabric. But that’s okay, there’s no need to panic.  We are going to tidy up the seams by turning the bag inside out and sewing a seam line that encompasses our previous seam and hides the raw edges. This is known as a French Seam, and it is generally used on lingerie and fine fabrics. But hey, there are no seam police so we are going to use it on our canvas bag.

I left my first seam at ¼” but you can trim it down to 1/8″ and make a smaller final seam if you wish.

Watch the step-by-step video below

(Can’t see the video? You may have an ad blocker installed).