Flora No. 6 – An EPP Sisu Tote Bag Project

Hi Makers! Sara Brown from @SaraBQuilts here to talk about Echo Park Paper Co’s new collection, Flora No. 6 and my favorite tote bag pattern! Flora No. 6 is a beautiful collection of bright spring colors mixed with fun floral prints. While I chose to focus on the blues, yellows, greens, and pinks of the collection, the whole collection includes dramatic black prints as well!

As an avid English paper piecer, I often take a (very) long time to finish quilts. Sometimes it is nice to be able to start a paper pieced project and know that you can finish it in a week’s time! This is where Lauren Newton’s (@GreyCatQuilts) Sisu tote bag pattern comes in! Lauren’s Sisu block is an English paper pieced block that can be made into a whole quilt or into a smaller project, like a bag or a pillow. It is such a versatile pattern, and I enjoy sewing them up so much. This is the fifth Sisu tote I have sewn up!

The Flora No. 6 Main print in Cloud and Periwinkle were my focal points, since the flowers are a larger scale and really stand out among the daintier prints. I appreciate that the Flora No. 6 collection has a good mix of small, medium, and large scale prints to bring interest to the blocks. I also chose to only use a pop of green on my bag, to let the periwinkle prints stand out!

Once I had my Sisu blocks sewn up, I decided to hand quilt the pieces of my tote to add some charm. The details are my favorite part of creating, because there are so many options! Hand quilting, leather handles with little stitches, and checkered sides made this project unique and showed off my personal style.

I added a giant pocket on the inside to accommodate my keys, wallet, etc when I am out and about. I have made some Sisu totes with small zipper pockets and others with no pocket at all! Since I plan on carrying this tote with me at QuiltCon in Raleigh, I wanted it to be roomy for all of my purchases. At roughly 15″ wide, 15″ tall, and 4″ deep, this is a large tote! You can get an idea of its size from the pictures below.

If you would like to make your own Sisu tote bad, head over to Lauren’s Etsy site here and you can find everything you need to get started! If you do make one, tag me on Instagram at @SaraBQuilts and if you see me and my Sisu tote bag at QuiltCon, be sure to say hi!