How to Draft a Gathered Top Bucket Tote
A tutorial for drafting a Bucket Tote with an oval bottom and drawstring top to any size you want.
Welcome to Sewing With Numbers, a newsletter about sewing, math, design and how to draft your own sewing patterns. Through simple pattern drafting exercises, I'll show you how fun, useful and empowering math can be. ✂️ Every 8 to 10 weeks, I feature a different drafting project, with each lesson building upon the learnings from previous ones. Posts older than 3 months are archived for paid subscribers. But if subscriptions aren’t your thing, I also have PDF Booklets for older projects available for purchase in my shop.
Today, we are continuing our Circular Bags project with a tutorial for a bucket tote. There are a lot of different ways to design a tote with a rounded bottom but essentially, this is a cylinder with straps added. To make it a little different from last week’s Duffel Bag tutorial, I’m adding a drawstring to the top and using an oval for the bottom. The drawstring would be useful project bags or you can lengthen it for a yoga mat bag. You could also eliminate the drawstring and use a magnetic closure for a different look.
Update 09/2025: This post is now archived for paid subscribers. If you are interested in this project but don’t want to subscribe, you can purchase a pdf version of this project in my shop.
