Reversible tote bag

OK, it's probably dumb to keep doing posts of various tote bags I make, but that's what I've been doing. This one is for my sister, and I hope it's already arrived or arriving soon. She is a grad student in harp performance at Texas Tech, so I made her this bag with treble clefs on one side and a Texas Tech theme on the other. It's a little hard to see the music pattern in the pictures of the bag, so here it is.

I don't think my sister is really into school spirit, so if she doesn't like it, I'm giving it to a friend who went to Tech for undergrad and is an elementary school music teacher. If my sister does like it, maybe I'll pick up these fabrics again when I'm in Texas and make one for my friend.

The other bags I've made using this pattern have a big old seam sticking into the inside, giving it a very clear outside and inside, but this time I constructed it to be fully reversible, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. To do that, I sewed the bottom seams of each fabric separately before sewing the sides and straps. I was going to turn through a strap, but after about two inches of trying that, I knew it would make me crazy, so I opened up part of the seam under one of the straps (kind of in the "armpit" of the bag) and turned through there, then tried to disguise it later. It worked pretty well. I was pleased with being able to make it reversible. It seems a lot cooler.

This was going to be a Christmas present for my sister, but then thesis defense stuff got in the way, so it was going to be a birthday present. Her birthday is in mid-March, but her second master's recital is tomorrow. Since I got it finished last weekend, I thought it would be a good recital present, so I just sent it on. I went to her first master's recital in November, but I couldn't make it out this time.