I couldn’t help it. I love this little purse, courtesy of Quilts and More Magazine.  It was in their Spring issue.  It only takes a half-yard for the outside and a half-yard for the inside.  It is so light and easy.  I had to work one in this weekend between diaper bags.  This is my second one out of a really kicky Anthropology fabric.  Love the purple!

There is even a longer strap option:  Pattern

Once X-Libris was up, it was time to turn to the next project on the To-Do List. Hmmm, maybe I need a To-Do List Gadget here so we can all see what I have in progress and pressure me to stay on task.  Just when I was ready to start the next projects, I got sick.  Then I took a vacation for the annual Quilt Show pilgrimage.  And then I got sick again.  And then a vicious storm hit our area and I was without power for nearly a week, specifically the vacation week I had taken to knock out most of the To-Do list.  I am not ashamed to admit that I do have a treadle sewing machine that needs no electricity and I did have a oil lamp out trying to thread the treadle out of frustration with the piled up projects.  Needless to say, I’m so very behind I cannot even think about it.

Miraculously, I have dedicated (or chained) myself to my sewing machine in the past couple of days and have finally completed a project.  I have a short list of hoodie diaper and messenger bags to complete.  This is a pic of the first one.

So join me in saying, “Goodbye Texas. Hello Cincinnati!”

After the recent success of the hoodie diaper bag designs, I wanted to return to the handbag designs.  AND, being married to a Univ. of Tennessee fan, I had to rid my house of this Univ. of Kentucky sweatshirt.  LOL!  And neither is the university that pays the bills every month! 

Anywho, this is a short handled hobo style bag made from a book of slouch purses.  It started its life as a youth hoodie.  I removed the kangaroo pocket from the front of the sweatshirt and reattached it to the inside, using it as a pocket. I stitched it so that it could be used as 3-sectioned pocket.  I reattached the label and fabric care tags inside the top edge of the pocket.  There is just something about having the care instructions with it that appeals to me. 

The plan is to put it up on my Etsy and send it far away from my home.  That’s not to say that more UK stuff will come into the house.  I’ve been getting orders from several states for the hoodie diaper bags and they are a variety of schools and colors.

Recycled coffee bag

This is a project that has rolled around in my mind for quite a while.  I’m as supportive of recycling as the next person.  But I love how the young people think it is something they thought of.  I grew up during the Energy Crisis of the 70’s and I remember when all of the public facility light switches had a fluorescent orange sticker on them saying to turn off the lights when the room is not in use. I am also a reformed plasti-holic.  I have actively returned to using glasses and fabric towels and real plates instead of the paper versions that kill trees.  But I love bags and I grew up on a farm with gunny sacks and my husband has recently discovered coffee so I found a certain appeal in the purses and bags on websites that are recycled from a burlap coffee sack.

Surprisingly, on a fall Rural King visit, I found a large pallet of used burlap bags.  One look revealed a multitude of coffee houses and roasters from exotic European countries as well as the South American continent.  I couldn’t help it.  I grabbed up 2.  One was a standard dark brown burlap with green and black stenciled markings  from the Rain Forest.  Another visit to another regional Rural King yielded another bag.  This could become a habit! The price was right.  When the cashier could find them in the register (they were listed as gunny sacks and she couldn’t spell that,) they rang up at 99 cents.On particular one enticed me.  You see a portion of it in the photo.  it was an especially light colored burlap, coarsely woven with 3 pink and green stripes woven in.

A visit to a local quilt shop produced another bargain that just screamed to be paired with this particular bag.  The fabric was adorable, something from the Fiesta dinnerware days.  It was in a particularly familiar pink and dark seafoam green and there were Mexican motifs all over it.  There was a quaint Mexican couple in sombreros with their donkey and cactus and pottery scattered over it.  It was perfect!

So, on MLK, I could ignore the voices in my head no longer and grabbed up the colorful gunny, a favorite bag pattern and the lining fabric as well as some piping in the corresponding pink and green.  A bag materialized from my efforts but let me say, many a lesson was learned in fabrication AND patience.

This I learned:

• use a finely-woven burlap bag……coarse burlap is too open weave to use with a backing of white canvas.
• wear a mask when cutting and sewing….these fibers fly everywhere when cut or stitched, so always wear a mask to keep the guck out of your lungs. (Beware, it goes everywhere.)
• choose a flexible bag……when the burlap bag did not want to fold up and go in the bag at the cash register, I should have seen that as a warning sign.
• use a very unstructured pattern ….this fiber does not lend itself to pressing seams open and turning shoulder strap.  I spend an hour trying to get the fiber to flex enough to turn the strap.  There were cuss words.

So here it is.  I’m not so sure that I’ve done Juan Valdez justice.  But I had to answer its call instead of working on e-book readers that I had cut wrong and growing list of projects.