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I just wanted to show off a fun duffel bag I made this week for a friend. It is a retro style with stripes on the outside. The pattern is the ISLA Bag from Sallie Tomato Patterns.
I’ve been on a major duffel bag kick lately. I made a large duffel bag to give my father-in-law for his birthday last month and two faux leather duffel bags for a church auction this month. All of them were made with the Wanderlust Duffel Bag pattern from Peek-A-Boo Pattern Shop, so I wanted to give a new duffel bag pattern a try — that’s why I picked the ISLA.
Out of these two duffel bag patterns, the Wanderlust is easier to sew and you have size options. However, the ISLA bag looks better overall. The ISLA does not have bias tape around the seams, and you can add more color variations!
My Retro Duffel Bag
There’s kind of a funny story behind why I decided to sew this shark duffel bag…
I made two really nice duffel bags for a church auction. One bag had University of Utah fabric on the inside and the other had BYU fabric on the inside. I thought they would bring some friendly school rivalry to the auction.
My husband wanted the duffel bag with the BYU fabric because that is his favorite team, and I told him I wasn’t making any more duffel bags because they made my needle bar go out of alignment. So, he was determined to win. One of my friends also wanted the BYU duffel bag, so they had a fun bidding war. In the end, my husband lost the auction, and it went for over $200! My husband was sad. About a month later, my friend decided to give the duffel bag to my husband for his birthday. That was crazy nice, so I made her a custom, retro duffel bag with shark fabric. She really likes sharks…
Here are some photos of the finished duffel bag:
If you’re interested in sewing the ISLA Bag from Sallie Tomato, they offer kits in addition to their pattern. They are great if you have a hard time matching fabrics and you want to get some coordinates that you know will look good together. I used a kit for this bag, but I substituted a couple of the fabrics for the stripes on the exterior of the bag.
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