DIY Pompom Summer Bag- a How To Guide

Instagram is my addiction with it's near constant stream of fashion, style and sewing inspiration with occasional food porn. One of my faves for feminine and fun ideas that are also unique is @thewhitingpost, a little shop based in Whitstable. A few weeks ago they posted these badass baskets and instantly I knew this would be the perfect holiday bag for our break to Lisbon. At £35 each these were well out of my price range so instead I set about making my own for under a fiver. Madness I hear you cry! But wait, my friend, for hell hath no determination like a woman on a budget.

My mother has a healthy wool stash and on my recent weekend away to sunny (or otherwise) Suffolk I raided her collection and made 16 poms whilst watching a relentless stream of antiques shows. As mentioned in my pompom crown and hair band post (read it here) I use the Clover brand pompom makers which you can buy here. For this project I used the tiny pink pompom maker. So far cost for this project: nada! Never buy wool for pompom making as it is the perfect opportunity to use up your stash.

I bought 70cm of cheap hessian for the basket/bucket bag and used black twill tape for the handles, which I stitched securely in a square and then diagonal cross shape. This came to £4. I designed the pattern for the bag myself based on how I imagined myself carrying it strolling along tiled Portuguese streets, cos I'm weird. 

I ensured to do lots of zig zagging on the edges of the bag to stop them fraying as hessian can be a nightmare for this due to it's very loose weave.

I made sure I left the strings on the pom-poms long so I could then thread them through the hessian in a vague pattern and secure each with a triple knot.

Overall I am very pleased with my simple but eye catching holiday bag, so pleased infact I have already been using it for summering in the city. Here it modelling with a jumper, *sigh*...

 In total this bag came in at £5.70 including the Gutterman thread my stuck up sewing machine insists on, so really I just saved myself £29.30. Yeah.

Hope you like my crazy summer project and are enjoying your own summer of fun crafty makes!

Thanks for reading and happy sewing x o x o