A beachy kind of tote

Digging through my stash of thrift store finds, I decided to use these placemats for what they were really intended for---a beach bag. This is what they said to me the day I found them, "Hello. please don't put me on your kitchen table where all that food and everything else gooey and soggy will spoil my happy stripes. What I really desire is to go to the beach. Pretty-please?" O.K.,  wish granted. It's true. Those stripes and colors say nothing but BEACH to me.

As you may imagine, this was a very easy project. Sewing 2 palcemats together is about as simple as it gets. I added a very roomy double pocket on the inside...

 

and a smaller one on the front, with a little free-form embroidery. My one red petal is a bit sad, but I like to say it just has character ;)

 

 

Can someone tell me how to master a french knot? I can not do those to save my life! I practice and practice, with my how-to book right next to me, continually referring to it.  What is my problem? Anyway, those tiny spots are my attempt. I just gave up and did a couple of small stitches to give the appearance of a knot....from about 5 feet away.

I tea-stained some cotton cording for the strap and tried my hand at grommets for the first time. Grommets are very beach tote-ish I think.

They were fun. Note to self: hammer grommets in over a hard surface, not the living room carpet, duh. Well, I did at least put a hard cutting board underneath. But man, it worked so much easier when I moved out to the front walkway outside.  Now I just need the temperature to go up about 20 degrees and for the wind to stop blowing and I'll be ready to hit the sand.