A tote for my Brother

Five or so years ago I bought an inexpensive Brother sewing machine to be my backup/portable machine. It’s made a little superfluous by my later acquisition of the Morse, and a club I’m part of is looking at turning some of our shelving into “cubbies” for individual members. Having learned there would be interest in a shared sewing machine there I’ve decided to use my cubby – whenever it exists – to house the Brother.

Brother sewing machine with tote bag

A sewing machine never travels alone, of course, and so a tote was in order for the manual, foot pedal, and bobbins. I also wanted to have some way to track use, for maintenance purposes, and a small sewing kit included to start people off.

contents of bag's outer pockets contents of main pocket of bag

The main tote bag has two outer pockets, sized to hold the manual + quick start guide and a small notebook for record-keeping. You’ve seen that small notebook before, of course, though it has the addition of a “sewing machine log” banner across the cover.

Inside the main tote are a drawstring bag and the foot pedal/power cord for the machine. The hot pink shoelace drawstring was in my stash; I believe my mother tied a gift for me with it at some point.

contents of inner drawstring bag

The drawstring bag is the sewing kit. The bobbin box was left over from a large project I am now realizing I never blogged, but it originally held pre-filled black and white bobbins. I half-filled it with a different set of pre-filled bobbins plus the three that came with the Brother. It also seemed like a good place for the Brother’s spare needles. The small plastic box originally held pins, from the same older project, and now has safety pins and a few snaps and hooks and eyes. The pincushion has one hand-sewing needle and a bunch of pins that came with the seam gauge and silver marking pencil. And, of course, you can’t have a sewing kit without scissors and a seam ripper.

I used this machine as a backup once when my machine had to go to the hospital in the middle of a project, but other than that it’s hardly been used. I’m looking forward to it being enjoyed instead of sitting on my shelf!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *