How to draft and sew a boxed corner tote bag

Today’s post is one that I wrote for my Substack Sewing With Numbers which I started in April of 2024. If you’re not familiar with it, Sewing With Numbers is a newsletter about sewing, math, design and how to draft your own sewing patterns. Through simple pattern drafting exercises, I show 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 is subscriptions aren’t your thing, I also have PDF Booklets for older projects are also available for purchase here in my shop. You can browse through the booklets currently available below.

Now that we have that background info out of the way, let’s dive in to today’s tutorial!

I have an exciting new project to announce this week. But first I'll start with a little background. I started Sew DIY 10 years ago and while I still love designing patterns, I've been feeling disenchanted and uninspired. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what kind of project I would be excited to work on and share about. And when the idea finally came to me it was half "ah-ha!" and half "oh, of course it's you, old friend".

The thing that gets me really excited is math. Well, math plus sewing and pattern drafting. I feel like I've done every sewing construction tutorial I can do but what I'm really excited to work on is solving math and design challenges. I earned my degrees in math and design so it's delightful that I still find these topics interesting. (I hope you do too!)

Anyway, drumroll please. I am starting a new Substack newsletter all about math, sewing and pattern drafting. My goal is to simplify and explain the pattern drafting process using math and show you how fun, useful and empowering math can be.

The new Substack is called Sewing With Numbers and I will feature a different drafting project every 6 to 8 weeks. There will be a newsletter about once a week with topics such as drafting exercises and design variations.

My plan is to keep things straightforward and uncomplicated. After all, when projects go well, we're more likely to keep trying new things and to eventually try more challenging ideas. There are so many fun things that you can make and design when you embrace math. I'm excited to explore these design challenges with you.

You can learn more in my Welcome post on Substack or enter your email address below to subscribe.

As always thank you so much for supporting me! (If you have a friend who wants to learn pattern drafting, please send them my way!)

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