Green ankle boot tote

Last night I made another reusable tote/grocery bag. I drew the boot in Adobe Illustrator, printed it out and made a stencil. The bag is white canvas, very sturdy and very large. I think the funky little boot and patterned handle balance the utility of the canvas nicely. I used grass green cotton for the upper trim.

More illustrations

I have a robot on the computer desk at home that came from a guy I worked with at my last job. (That's Winston with him in the picture.) The robot is a wind-up toy that also sharpens pencils. Brian is very quirky and his robot collects and gifts reflect his unique personality. Anyway, the robot inspired me to make an illustrated version of him. What do you think? Which color combo is the best? Leave a comment and let me know so I can use the winner for an applique on a reusable grocery tote in the future.

Illustrations

Today I worked on some illustration ideas for future sewing projects for Etsy. Being a shoe fanatic, I started with some cute shoe illustrations. What do you think of the stiletto platform ankle boot above? I also drew a deer, a whale and a few other random things. Felt pretty good to get back into Illustrator since it's the Adobe program I use the least at work.

The Plan

Home To Roost is another shop that uses shapes cut from fabric patterns to give a cute illustration feel. Here are some examples. I really like the two birds and think they'd look awesome with a patterned fabric.

Let the fabric do the work

As I have been browsing Etsy, I have found a number of talented people cutting shapes from cute fabric to make even cuter appliques. I think these would look great on a canvas reusable shopping bag. Simple but fun. I have seen apples (the ones in the pic are from Northern Warm Things Etsy shop) but also super cute birds, trees and owls, mostly utilizing great patterns. An idea would be to make the appliques from cute fabric, but also sew the canvas bag and apply them before sale, instead of selling the individual appliques, which is already being done.