Girly Dance Tote

My little one is quite the dancer, but I had reservations about signing her up for dance class at age three. Finally I found a creative movement and ballet class at our Y during the day. The teacher has great energy and is very engaging.

Even though it is a dance class, many children wear street clothes and socks or sneakers for class. The teacher did say that leotards and ballet slippers are good too. My daughter has worn a leotard every class and started wearing ballet shoes too. These are everyday clothes for her at home, why not wear them to dance class. 

A mini dance tote for a mini girl seemed like the perfect next project. 

Lately everything is about sparkles.  Fortunately, I had a little leftover purple sparkly fabric and some pink sparkly corduroy.  The ballet slipper ribbon was also in my stash. After looking around for some extra inspiration, I saw many dance bags have a tulle skirt on them. I thought a little tulle would make a nice accent. 

I started with a 10.5" square of the pink corduroy and added about a 2.5" strip purple sparkly on top. Then, I cut 7" from the bottom to add the tulle. The tulle was 4" wide and approximately four times the width of the bag. I layered two strips of tulle and then gathered them. Adding a silver ribbon on the seam helped bring out the sparkles. 

Before sewing up the sides and bottom, I trimmed the tote bag to 9" x 11". This would be the measurement for the lining too. The straps ended up being 3" x 22" and folded into the center so no raw edges are showing. I added ribbon here too to give the corduroy more stability. 

I forgot to add the ballet ribbon until the sides were together, so I ripped out a small area of one side seam and fed the ends through there. 

The bottom corner boxing was sewn in at 1.5".

And when trying it on her shoulder complete with ballet slippers inside, all she had to say was, "it's perfect."